Some52things

Challenge 32: favourite picture of this month

2012-02-12T10:59:00.001+01:00

I think further explanation is unnecessary. :)

Challenge 31: Lying on your back or stomach

2012-02-06T17:10:00.002+01:00

This challenge brought me back to my childhood, when I would stare up at the ceiling and think about what it would be like to live on the ceiling. Not actually living upside down, but more as in the ceiling being the floor and vice versa. Thoughts about using the chandelier as table...

For this picture I went to my daughter's bedroom.

Looking up when lying on my daughter's bed.

She has a canopy hanging over her bed and we've attached a butterfly to it. It's spreading its wings, ready to fly, ready to soar. I'm feeling like that right now. I'm ready to fly, ready to soar.

Challenge 30: Bend through your knees - low angle

2012-01-20T10:08:00.000+01:00

When I bend through my knees I can see the world through my baby girl's eyes. She is crawling now and also pulling herself up more and more. Maybe she's encouraged by this cute little bunny waiving at her from her play pen?

Challenge 29: Something from above - High Angle

2012-01-13T08:14:00.000+01:00

Orchid from above

Challenge 28: Eyes

2012-01-13T08:10:00.003+01:00

My girl. She has such beautiful eyes. Both in colour and black and white.

Challenge 27: Smiles

2012-01-04T19:34:00.000+01:00

Challenge 26: Christmas

2011-12-23T22:19:00.000+01:00

What it is all about...

Challenge 25: Jewelry

2011-12-23T22:10:00.001+01:00

Simple, sweet, lovely...

Challenge 24: Bokeh

2011-12-19T13:17:00.000+01:00

First of all: Bokeh comes from a Japanese word meaning blur. The fun thing about bokeh is that you can make the 'blur' look like different shapes by putting a shape in front of your lens.

And here's a look behind the scenes: my homemade bokeh lens hood. Well yes, of course I used a heart shape :)

See how very professionally I put this together?

Challenge 23: Family

2011-12-11T14:28:00.001+01:00

Oldest & youngest together.
My firstborn: I'm a mama because of you.
My youngest: In every sense the baby of the family.

I'm a little behind on my challenges, but hey, we celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary yesterday :) and my first attempt at the "Bokeh" challenge was a complete failure. Need to google a bit more about that first.

Challenge 22: Black & White

2011-11-28T15:50:00.000+01:00

Black and white: turning pictures into something timeless.

Challenge 21: Something that tells time

2011-11-19T17:45:00.000+01:00

Passed on to my husband by his father who inherited it from his father. It doesn't work anymore but I think it tells how fast time passes just by looking at it.

This handmade heirloom, treasured and loved, will one day pass to our own son.

Challenge 20: Something in your home

2011-11-13T18:44:00.000+01:00

Doorknobs on kitchen cabinets.

Challenge 19: Favourite picture of this month

2011-11-04T11:01:00.000+01:00

My three loves...
I love how they all have different eye-colours.

(straight out of the camera!)

Challenge 18: Something fun

2011-10-28T09:00:00.001+02:00

Boots + fall leaves

Spotting Buzz Lightyear and a little devil in the local park

Challenge 17: Something sweet

2011-10-22T10:41:00.000+02:00

This is what you get when your mother-in-law moves to an apartment above a candy store...

ISO: 1600 / Shutter speed: 1/640 / Ap 1.8
Picnik: boost + cross process

Challenge 16: Something feminine

2011-10-16T09:49:00.000+02:00

Lace

(and for the record: no, I'm not wearing it!)

Challenge 15: Something from afar

2011-10-14T09:23:00.000+02:00

Morning Moon

I've fallen a little behind on my challenges but will be posting the next one soon!

Challenge 14: Something from up close

2011-09-30T11:15:00.000+02:00

Delicious rolls... :)

Close-up of a wool jacket

Back view of my little girl's natural mohawk

Close-up at unusual angle

Hmmm, not sure what's going on with this post, but the picture I chose does not want to upload in the right direction. Sorry about that.

Challenge 13: Something at night

2011-09-27T09:41:00.000+02:00

For this challenge I really wanted to try something I hadn't done before: light writing. Since we didn't have any glow sticks or sparklers at hand, we used my cellphone. It took a bit of practice and the results would probably have been better had we used a tripod, but I'm still happy with the outcome.

(With thanks to my lovely husband for assisting me with this challenge)

Challenge 12: Something indoors

2011-09-16T09:20:00.001+02:00

Experimenting with different angles.

Challenge 11: Something outdoors

2011-09-09T13:19:00.000+02:00

Recently planted in our garden: raspberries. We hope to be able to pick some berries next Summer!

I am keeping my expectations realistic though. Except for the easy-growing ivy we've never been able to grow much else in our backyard...

Challenge 10: Something new

2011-09-06T14:25:00.000+02:00

Recently purchased:

So my husband who loves baking can make delicious things like this:

Sooooo good!!!

Next challenge: something outdoors.

Challenge 9: Something old

2011-09-01T13:46:00.000+02:00

My laptop crashed so I'm very late in posting this. I did not go out to 'find' something old. Instead I looked through my pictures of last weekend and found this:

The sea... definitely something old.

It had been so long since we went to the seaside that, despite the dark clouds and even some rain, it just seemed more beautiful. Even though the Northsea is not the kind of sea with clear blue water, the Belgian coastline has a long stretch of sandy beaches where the kids love to play. And play they did...

And we relaxed under a big umbrella, taking in the salty air while wearing sweaters and a raincoat during the Summer...

Challenge 8: Something white

2011-08-19T14:16:00.000+02:00

I found it extremely hard to photograph this challenge. The camera had a hard time focusing on the object. I used Picnik to brighten the colour (and I also put a '1960' effect on it, since it gave the picture some extra character).

Challenge 7: favourite picture of this month

2011-08-17T19:13:00.000+02:00

I know it's blurry but this just happens to be my favourite picture of this month.

It's a picture of my youngest daughter. Maybe I love it so much because I love her so much? :-)

Changing the challenge

2011-08-16T14:09:00.000+02:00

Getting a bit frustrated with the current weather... This summer is not turning out to be one of Belgian's best (well, it's just more like the ones we are used to having). We haven't even blown up our kids' swimming pool since the good weather - when it does come along - doesn't stay for long.

Therefore I am making an official change to challenge no. 7. Instead of "something that says summer" I will just post my favourite picture of this summer. After I get through my huge pile of ironing. That would not make a great picture.

Summer?

2011-08-09T16:14:00.000+02:00

I'm thinking about changing my next challenge. Normally it would be "something that says Summer", but for the past few days it has seemed as if it were Fall already: it's been cold, rainy, windy...

Challenge 6: Something pink

2011-08-05T08:59:00.000+02:00

This flower reminds me of "Bambi", the scene where Thumper tells him to eat the flowers and not the greens. Thumper 's mom doesn't agree and she reminds him of what his father used to say.

So Thumper says: ""Eating greens is a special treat, It makes long ears and great big feet. But it sure is awful stuff to eat." and he adds: "I made that last part up myself."

More yellow

2011-08-04T13:40:00.000+02:00

Yes, another car!

I think this one can be classified under 'Oldtimer'. In Flemish we call it 'geitje' (translation: little goat).

Next challenge: something pink!

Challenge 5: Something yellow

2011-07-30T15:10:00.000+02:00

I was sure I was going to photograph my LiveStrong bracelet for this challenge. But then I found some yellow in unexpected places.

And I'm not even into cars!

More green

2011-07-24T18:32:00.000+02:00

There was so much more green to be found.

Shades of green ivy in our backyard

Mossy greens on trees

Not sure what these are, but hey, they're green!

And even the water was green

And I even came across some great yellows, but that's for the next challenge!

Challenge 4: Something green

2011-07-22T12:47:00.000+02:00

Something green... easy I thought. Just go outside and there's plenty of green to be found there. However, in the beginning of the week the weather wasn't really cooperating: lots of rain made it impossible to go outside.

The sun did manage to sneak through the clouds eventually, but for most of the week we have had grey skies (which would have been great if this challenge had been named 'something grey', but now, not so great at all).

I tried to capture the sun through the leaves. I'm quite happy with how this picture turned out. I wish the sun would be here now... Here comes the rain again.

Challenge 3: Something blue

2011-07-15T17:15:00.001+02:00

Something blue

A morning walk in the local park turned out to be both pleasant and good for photographing blue things. It was quiet too, mostly grandparents with small children.

I do have to remind myself to take my camera everywhere. I didn't pick it up much after this walk.

Next challenge: Something green

A bit more red

2011-07-11T19:16:00.000+02:00

Challenge 2: Something Red

2011-07-08T10:14:00.000+02:00

Something red

Cute little T-shirt...

I learned a bit more about Picasa this time. And through Picasa I discovered Picnic, a free program where you can alter your pictures. Since "free" is so much less expensive than Photoshop, I totally love it! There are different presets you can choose from to transform your picture with options like "1960's" which makes your picture look much older. Fun! There are 'premium' options as well which you have to pay for, but there are plenty of free ones to start with.

If time permits I'll post more pictures on this theme.

Next challenge: something blue

Challenge 1: me & my camera

2011-06-30T13:20:00.000+02:00

Me & my camera

Apparently I was so excited to start this photo challenge that I erroneously announced in my previous post that today would be the first day of my challenge. But of course July 1 is still a day away, even in this part of the world. Oops.

So,...I'm allowing myself to get a headstart.

The most obvious picture would have been me in front of our living room mirror and I initially started out with that, but then I began looking for other reflective surfaces. The above picture is my reflection in our microwave (conveniently built in at eye-level). I thought that the little polka dots on the microwave door would appear in the picture as well, but that turned out not to be the case. Instead there appears to be a slight 'misty mirror' effect which I kinda like since it softens the colours a bit.

These past few days I have gone through the basics in my camera's instruction manual. For this picture I played around with the ISO setting on my camera because I thought it would be the easiest first step for a beginner who wants to get away from the automatic setting. I used the 'Av' function and set the camera on ISO 100 and then on ISO 1600 to see the difference between the minimum and maximum setting. When shooting on ISO 100 the camera needed a longer (or do I need to say higher?) shutter speed then on ISO 1600. This seems logical: when the camera gets lots of light, it needs less time to take the picture.

Ok, taking baby steps here, but they are exactly what I need to "get" the technical stuff.

I used Picasa to add text to the picture, nothing else. Still need to learn more about Picasa too. :) If time permits I'll post some more pictures.

Next challenge: something red

Adding to the challenge

2011-06-29T12:29:00.001+02:00

My photo challenge starts tomorrow. Tomorrow also happens to be the last day of school for my children. Since their summer holiday lasts until September 1 and they will be home practically everyday for the entire summer, my photo challenge will really live up to its name: a true challenge!

Why 52?

2011-06-26T17:52:00.000+02:00

I knew before assigning myself a photography challenge that I wasn’t cut out to try a 365 photo challenge. Although I would try to at first, taking pictures and posting about them daily just isn’t me. I’ve learned that much about myself over the years...

52 however, well now that seems more managable. In order to keep it interesting I’ve put my thinking cap on and came up with 52 themes, one for every week starting July 1^st (well, that was obvious wasn’t it?).

The idea is not only to photograph 52 different subjects, but also to learn more about terms like “depth of field”, “aperture” and “shutter speed”.

An introduction of sorts: my camera

2011-06-24T11:50:00.000+02:00

This is my camera:

The Canon EOS 400D. I also have a 50 mm lens.

My first challenge will be 'Me & my camera' meaning that I have to get both myself and my camera in the shot. Obvious conclusion: I'll have to wipe my mirror down first.

The beginning

2011-06-23T22:20:00.000+02:00

It’s not exactly the same as a New Year's resolution but the second half of the year seems as good a time as any to start this project. Besides, New Year resolutions are hard to keep.

Starting week: July 1-8

Starting theme: Me & My camera