Category: photography

National Photo Posting Month

I needed a spark and I got one.

I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, but for this week I caught a spark, a bit of mojo perhaps, a reminder of a passion I used to have for photography. It’s not really important where I first noticed it, but it’s back for the moment and I’m determined to fan the embers awhile.

Cut to my friend Karen Walrond and her introduction of National Photo Posting Month, or #NaPhoPoMo. As a long time blogger I was very familiar with the practice of working on a novel or writing a blog post a day for the month of November, but I certainly had never even tried it. And I’ve never successfully completed one of those photo-a-day assignments I see all over Instagram. But the beauty of NaPhoPoMo is that I don’t have to follow some topic guideline and the real purpose is honing my craft. Practice practice practice. There’s nothing better than shooting daily to force new perspectives and uncover new skills.

So I started November 1st, but I didn’t get the shots actually posted each day until today. Choosing just one shot a day to post is actually proving harder than I thought.

November 1: My grandfather’s new smile.

Grandfather

 

November 2: Colleen’s grandson chilling at No Label Brewery on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.

NoLabelBrewery

 

November 3: After several days of rain, my mutant rose bush is in full bloom again. The colors here stun me.

NaPhoPoMo

 

Stay tuned for more.

A Good Friday In Texas

It’s that time of year again. This year Easter weekend corresponded perfectly with the height of bluebonnet season in southeast Texas. Amazingly (given the sacredness of the holiday) both my kids and myself have Good Friday off every year. So I did a little research and got the boys up at 0-dark-thirty to drive out to bluebonnet country in search of great photos. 

This year we did not have nice new brightly colored matching polo shirts. In our latest efforts to fight consumerism (hello, our small group is working though Jen Hatmaker’s book, 7) I refuse to spend money on new clothes just for Easter or a few cute photos. Even with my vastly reduced shopping habit, my boys still have enough clothes to choke a horse. So I pulled out the cute matching shirts I bought for them last year that still fit. I wish they had been solid colored. 
And there are the results! My only regret is that we didn’t leave the house earlier, because I saw some amazing morning light on the drive up but I didn’t stop because I knew where we were headed. We weren’t the first to arrive at the amazing field, but we did beat the rush of families and photographers.