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Category Archives: CM Monthly Challenge

This months challenge was creating drama with light and I selected a group of images from the archives that best represent my vision of dramatic light. In each image, the scene is wholly influenced by the presence or absence of light.

Thank you for taking time to look and please continue on to view the photography of Natalie Fay Green. Her photography, both honest and refreshing, explores the beauty that can be found in her everyday life.  Her work is currently on display in the juried show Voyages at The Kiernan Gallery.

I hope everyone had a spooky and sweet Halloween! It was an especially fun day for us because my oldest turned 8! School parties, cupcakes, candy, and costumes–who wouldn’t love all that on their birthday?

Now for the Halloween pictures!

They are hugging and smiling! It is a photo miracle–normally they hug and then some shoving and pulling ensues and pretty soon they are on the ground yelling at each other.

Somebunny (sorry I’ve been dying to use a pun) didn’t want anything to do with my camera. She did, however, have a full on “I want mommy night”!

She giggled and clapped and sang to me as we trick or treated through the neighborhood.

What does the fox say? My little fox said “thank you” as he trick or treated! He was MELT MY HEART cute. He was much more of a trickster at the school parties 😉

She wanted to be a zombie princess but I am so glad I talked her into using her owl costume one last time!

Poor girl, even though I brought Crisco to the party for her to use instead of peanut butter, she still managed to get a little bit of peanut butter on her forearms.

Then she couldn’t stop scratching and touched her face with her hands, so she had hives there too!

It was funny to watch her pick through the candy buckets and happily give her older brother all the candy with peanuts.

My Birthday boy!!! How cute is he as a hammerhead shark!

Thanks for looking and as always please help us continue our blog circle and feel free to leave comments on my blog and the others you visit!

I can’t wait to see what Natalie came up with for our spooky theme…will it be a trick  -OR- treat? Click here to find out!

For this months challenge I had visions of ghostly people throughout my images, but reality set in and I decided to just have some fun! I took these images while riding down the highway at night. I used a slow shutter speed to create the base of the motion blur and I decided to just play around with the effect by moving my camera in different directions as the shutter was open. In the first image, I moved it in a panning motion. In the second image, I shook the camera up and down rapidly. The third, I swirled the camera around in circles. In the last image, I tried to create a heart (I failed at the heart but the resulting circles were still kind of neat). Sometimes it is just fun to play with your camera and not take it (or yourself) so serious!

 

Please help us continue our blog circle by viewing the wonderful photographic journey of Tamra Yandow.

This months theme was mobile phone.  In an attempt to keep my kids busy and myself sane while they are all four home during summer break, I decided to teach my seven year old son more about photography.  For as long as he’s had an iphone, which is around three years (I feel compelled to explain that it has no cell service, so its more of an ipod touch), he has been setting up “scenes” for his toys and then photographing them from different angles.  It’s really amazing to flip through his iphone and see what catches his eye and compels him to take a picture.  Using my children as “models” I attempted to show him how he can set up simple lighting, use motion, and lens distortion to enhance his iphonography.

Lighting: In these first two images, I showed him how a simple flash light can be used to add drama and interest to a scene. During this lesson we also had a lot fun making shadow puppets and giant “kid eating” dinosaurs on the wall.

Motion Blur: These next two images focused on motion blur.  This was the simplest lesson since they are always moving! just frame up the shot and click (or tap) no need to try to get them to “stand still.” Frankly, that pleased me a great deal since that request is almost always met with groans and well… movement. As if a five year old, in full ballerina attire, could ever stand still MOM!

 

Distortion: This last image was taken from underwater looking up at the baby (I just got an S4 Active–yay no more worrying about my phone getting wet, although I am sacrificing camera quality).  I showed him how deliberately tilting the camera towards and away from the subject changes the way the image is recorded. The water also adds to the overall distorted look of her face.  He thinks his sweet baby sister looks like a pig, because her nose looks like a snout.  I think she looks like one of those antique eery dolls. Doll sounds much nicer than pig.

Please continue our exploration of mobile phone photography by visiting the very talented Elena S. Blair Photography. Elena is a natural light photographer that specializes in newborn, child and family portraiture. Her beautiful family portraiture work was just recently featured on ABC’s The View.