February Photo A Day Summary

(The funny thing I've noticed about my lack of blogging is that I've had more daily blog views than I ever did when I was doing regular posts.)

We're now a delightful 6 days in March and haven't they mostly been nice sunny days? Perfect shooting days. Have I been out doing just that? Not in the slightest. Anyways what I wanted today's post to be is a conclusive summary on my February Photo A Day challenge.

You can see full sized versions on my Flickr or on my previous February Photo A Day posts.

Well I completed February Photo A Day without missing a single day and although they may not be the most inspiring of photographs at least I managed something for each day. Sometimes I wasn't remotely enthused by the day's prompt and on other days I was simply not interested in shooting regardless of the prompt. The weather and my anxiety issues meant I was for the most part stuck indoors so I struggled to keep things interesting. However I did find doing a challenge such as this to be something of a learning experience. I did once long ago attempt a 365 project but it became tedious when I was stuck indoors as much as I was. That would be the ultimate challenge for me to complete really. So a month long challenge I figured would be well suited to me. For some prompts I knew in advance what I wanted to shoot and I'd just go for it. For others I'd think it over and look around my house to see what I could shoot trying out a few things before settling on my final shot. Sometimes I'd have an idea in mind, begin shooting but become bored by the shots I was getting so end up shooting something entirely different. For pretty much every shot I would be thinking could I make this better? I tried various angles and placements to get the shot I wanted. I had one restriction in that for the majority of the shots I stuck to my 50mm lens as I'm a sucker for a shallow depth of field. What I'd find as I began shooting is that I'd start really considering my composition for some shots and it's been a while since I've really done that. I think with my recent enjoyment of film I've perhaps gotten a bit lax with my composition and I've indulged a little too much in a point & shoot mentality. You'd think that would be the other way round considering how expensive film is compared to digital. I think in future I've got to get myself back into considering my composition regardless of the format I'm shooting on.

For a month long challenge Fat Mum Slim provides some pretty easy but interesting prompts that anyone could attempt. I'd love to see more of what other people produced for her challenges using actual cameras rather than the masses of Instagrammers. Having said that if I were an iPhone owner I'd be on Instagram constantly doing these challenges. Although I'm not joining in the March Photo a Day challenge I have been left inspired to come up with my own prompts for a similar challenge. More on that another time. Overall this was a fun way to get myself back into shooting digital although I'm still feverishly fanatical about film.

What you may see in future is a post featuring all the "rejected" shots from this challenge as I think I've got some interesting alternatives that I'd hate to leave unseen.

I will eventually make a return to regular posting. Expect another post this week as I had a film developed from my LC-A+ recently and I want to make a post out of that. I'm sorry I'm not as frequent blogger as I was but that's something of a personal issue.

Laters,

P x

February Photo A Day - Part 5

I've been wholly absent from the blogging sphere but I wanted to do a quick update with the last of the February Photo A Day.

Day 25 - Green

Day 26 - Night

Day 27 - Something You Ate

Day 28 - Money

Day 29 - Something You're Listening To

And I'm done. The last of the photographs.

Laters,

P x

February Photo A Day - Part 4

Part 4 is here and I must confess I struggled this week. Possibly I'm a little bored of the project. There have been days when I haven't wanted to shoot the prompts but I knew I'd be more annoyed with myself if I didn't. It's a funny thing shooting when you really don't want to.

Day 18 - Drink

Day 19 - Something You Hate To Do

Day 20 - Handwriting

Day 21 - A Fave Photo Of You

Day 22 - Where You Work

Day 23 - Your Shoes

Day 24 - Inside Your Bathroom Cabinet

Since I'm writing this at 8am in the morning that mug of tea is looking mighty attractive right now and yes that mug is extra large. I'd say it's probably about a pint, possibly more of tea and that's how I like it. I like a LOT of tea. The something I hate to do is dry my hair. I don't particularly go in much for special care routines when it comes to my hair and face, I just do what works for me. But I decided to try out a diffuser hairdryer as they are supposed to be better for curly hair. What that means is it takes twice as long to dry my hair these days because I no longer just blast it. That photograph also shows off my newly dyed gingery locks. And I shot it tethered to my laptop so I could see the results instantly. Pretty fun way to shoot self portraiture. My favourite photograph comes from my first birthday in Spain, I'm on the left and my brother is giving me a birthday kiss. As I don't have a job any "work" I do is done entirely on my laptop and usually from the confines of my bed. Day 23 is where I really did not want to shoot. I'd planned to shoot my beloved Converse as those have been my staple shoes since I was 17. Instead I got involved with cleaning the house and by the time I'd finished, made tea for my men and sat down to finally relax I was absolutely knackered. Then I remembered I needed to do this photograph. Bother.

There you have it, another week is done and I only have 4 more days of prompts to shoot. Including night which should be an interesting shot to attempt without a tripod. I know this week of photographs haven't been very inspiring but I haven't found the prompts to be very inspiring to be honest. I'm actually thinking of setting my own photo challenges by amassing prompts from other challenges and asking for contributions.

As for March's photo challenge, well I haven't decided on whether to join in on that one yet. However if you do decide to then please let me know as I'd love to follow.

Laters,

P x

February Photo A Day - Part 3

Another week down, another week of #Febphotoaday.

Day 11 - Makes You Happy

Day 12 - Inside Your Closet

Day 13 - Blue

Day 14 - Hearts

Day 15 - Phone

Day 16 - Something New

Day 17 - Time

If you remember last week I said how I didn't like taking self portraits and you can probably see why in the photo for day 11. Admittedly it was a last minute panic photo because what I'd originally wanted to photograph wasn't an option on the day. So I took that photo instead. It's supposed to represent reading. Reading makes me happy. Not that you'd think that from that photograph. The next morning I actually thought of about 3 or 4 better ideas but obviously that was too late. It's always the way. What I'd wanted to photograph was my nephew who crops up as day 13 instead. I tell you that kid is not a willing model. I had to bribe him to get him to stand still. To be fair though he was poorly. I think day 15 was pretty fortuitous. And yes day 16 is technically something old but is something new to my collection so it counts. Also taking a photo of your own wrist with a 50mm lens is hard.

So that's the latest lot of photographs. I hope you've enjoyed them. We're just over half way with this challenge so there's a couple more posts yet to come. Feedback is welcome as always.

Laters,

P x

February Photo A Day - Part 2

Here's the next lot of February Photo A Day photographs.

Day 4 - A Stranger

Day 5 - 10am

Day 6 - Dinner

Day 7 - Button

Day 8 - Sun

Day 9 - Front Door

Day 10 - Self Portrait

Admittedly there are some questionable subject interpretations here. Day 4 - A Stranger for example, to me my Zenit-E is a stranger, I have no idea how to work it and it remains unused/untested. I'll get there, just requires some self taught photography lessons no doubt. Day 6 - Dinner, well ok it was an ingredient for lunch but I wouldn't have had chance to photograph my actual dinner. And day 9 - Front Door, that is the door to my CD house not an actual house. But I wasn't about to go outside in the miserable weather to photograph my boring front door. And as for day 10 - Self Portrait, well I hate taking photographs of myself plus I don't have a tripod so at the very end of the day I snapped this shot instead. Trust me, it's a much nicer picture of me.

There you have it. The next lot will be posted next Saturday. I hope you've enjoyed these for now though. Link me up if you're doing this as I'd love to see how else people are shooting these prompts.

Laters,

P x

February Photo A Day

If you saw Wednesday's post you'll know I'm doing my best to be a part of February Photo A Day. It's been simple enough so far but then again we're only three days in. I do keep looking through the prompts and forming rough plans of what I'll shoot for them which hopefully improves my chances of completing this. It's such a simple challenge but I'm incredibly undisciplined in sticking to projects and finishing them on time.

Anyways here are the first three shots.

Day 1 - Your View Today

Day 2 - Words

Day 3 - Hands

Like I mentioned on Wednesday I am also shooting this on film, in fact I'm shooting it using my Diana F+. But that won't be developed until the challenge is complete. For now the digital photos will be posted on Saturdays as a regular feature for this month.

Feedback welcome. I'm lazily experimenting with editing by using Photoshop actions. And good luck to anyone else who is also trying this!

Laters,

P x

February Photo Challenge

In an attempt to somewhat encourage myself creatively I'm going to try my best to complete the below February Photo A Day Challenge as set by Fat Mum Slim.

I think this is largely aimed at those lucky people with iPhones who can Instagram their way through life but I'm going to try it anyways. Knowing me I'll give up early on. I'm terrible with photo challenges. But I need some encouragement when it comes to shooting at the moment and this seems a fun way to do it.

I won't post my results daily but will group them up into one post a week. I'm planning on doing this on my Canon 450D and one of my film cameras so it'll be fun to see the difference between the two at the end.

Wish me luck!

Laters,

P x