Project 365 - Day 6

Well - I thought I'd missed Day 6 (in fact, technically I DID), however, much to my dismay, I'm STILL awake, wayyyyy too late (early?) in the wee hours of the night (or morning - it's confusing - especially in my exhaustion).

I was rewarded however by some fun antics of one of our new hermit crabs (Hermione!).  She was very active the first day, but once I got them settled into a better habitat (or Crabitat as they say!), she burrowed underground for about 24 hours.  About an hour ago, she came up for air and has been having lots of fun and eating (I guess she likes apples!).

Hermione and her buddy Allie have become new fodder for my focus and as such, will likely be featured regularly in my project 365.  Funny - I never in a million years would have decided to get hermit crabs.  It was a complete whim of my husband and 2 youngest daughters, without my knowledge (until they walked in the house with them!), HOWEVER, I'm really enjoying them (when I'm not overwhelmingly busy stressing out over how to best care for them so as not to kill them!).  I think we've finally gotten the crabitat under control and now I can just enjoy them...

Any vacancies?

I Heart Faces/Best Faces Photo from 2011

My first I Heart Faces Challenge entry ever...this may not be my "Best" face of 2011, but I have to admit, it IS my favorite!

Enter your Best Face of 2011 at I Heart Faces this week!

Project 365 - Day 5

Today was a busy day - completely overwhelmed by giving unexpected hermit crabs a decent shot at a long, healthy life (in our very cold, cold home - our thermostat is generally kept at 63 in the winter...brrrrr).  LOTS of time spent collecting and sifting through LOTS of hermit crab websites and information (much of it conflicting!).  One 10 gallon tank, 8 quarts of coconut fiber substrate, one cholla log, one under tank heater,   (and a lot of other stuff!) later, the day flew by with not much thought or time for project 365... (by the way - if anyone viewing this has ANY good experience with hermit crabs - advice is extremely welcome!!! Post in the comments!)

However, as I was running in and out of various pet stores (and a few other key errands along the way), I was walking back to my car and caught a glimpse of my reflection in the back of my car.  My car is a Kia Soul (I call her the "Soul Sista"!) and for some reason, this struck a chord with me somehow, seeing my reflection lined up right next to the word "Soul"....whatever - so I whipped out my iPhone and took an instagram photo of it.  One other thing that really caught my eye was how incredibly dirty the Soul Sista is!!!

Project 365 - Day 4

So far so good - before I even had a chance to complicate life by making "plan" for today's photo(s), the opportunity presented itself!  My wonderful husband and 2 youngest came home with hermit crabs!  Thankfully, I pulled out the camera and got my shots in at the time, because my time has been completely taken up the rest of the day by reading about the care and maintenance of the hermit crab - not as simple as the pet store led them to believe...

Anyways - here's today's "if I have to pick just one":

And here the others...(I think I'm sensing a trend here):

Project 365 - Day 3

Well....I'll admit, I'm not getting better yet at whittling down my shots to just one pic per day.  As a matter of fact, I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I actually have 5 from day 3!!!  In my defense, it IS Saturday, which meant that I had more time to shoot today than I might have had on a weekday, with more willing subjects.  And also in my defense, it contributed to way more family together time as we went on a family hike and I brought the camera along (it's already getting easier to grab the camera and go!).

So - without further ado - my pics from Day 3:

If I had to pick just one, this would be it, hands down!  Don't you just love her?!

But....as it turns out, I DON'T have to pick just one!  So here are the runner's up for today

And in honor of our recent 10th anniversary of our first date:

(ok - so that's 6 for today, but who's counting...)

Project 365 - Day 2

Day 2


Yes!  I did it!!!  This time I actually did get the shot(s) in WAY ahead of schedule - however, it has taken me almost 'til midnight again to get it posted - but I suppose that's progress - and it's DEFINITELY a goal met for the 2nd day in a row!

Today's shot came as a planned afterthought - I knew I had to get a video clip of something for an actual PAID project I'm working on (the one that I keep procrastinating myself around with all of these cool photography projects...).  I figured since I have to bring the video camera with me, I might as well throw the D7000 in the car as well, and I'll just snap a shot after I get the required video footage.

So I found myself standing outside of the synagogue, looking around for something interesting to photograph for today's pic.  It was a bit of a windy day, (and nice, bright high-noon sun), so the 2 flags snapping in the wind caught my eye (American and Israeli flags).  Alright - good enough....so I started snapping away from where I was standing outside my car after having tucked the video camera back in it's bag.  Done - right?  Uh....well - this is me, remember?  Not quite done....maybe I'll just step over to the other side of the parking lot, and maybe a silhouette shot?  No.... I know - a sunburst shot!  Yeah - now we're on to something!

As I was shooting into the sun, it was very hard to see what I was actually getting on the display screen.  So I would snap, finagle the camera around so I could get beyond the glare, and then go back at it again, trying different settings and trying to get the best snap of the flag.  As I was inspecting the display, out of the corner of my eye, this HUGE flock of birds fly directly above the flag AND I MISSED IT!!!!

Or - at least so I thought...apparently I caught the stragglers!

 


This 365 thing is pretty cool!  I can't wait to see what I'll get tomorrow!

Project 365 Day 1

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that as the minute hand was drawing closer and closer to the end of the day (and is still racing towards midnight as I type!), that I initially said -"to hell with it!  I'll start tomorrow".  My next immediate thought was, "Oh hell - I'll just grab the iphone and snap a shot on my way up the stairs to bed".  But as I passed my desk on the way, and saw my D7000 sitting there, all primed and ready to go (I"ve made it a priority to always have a fresh memory card and battery in place and camera out in grabbing distance for this challenge), I succumbed and grabbed it and after looking around for a few minutes (and of course making it harder than it needed to be....), I finally wandered purposefully into my youngest daughter's room, newly made hers alone just this evening as a couple of the older kids shuffled room ownership around.  In the resulting relocation of her older sister, she lost the night light they had shared and in it's place, i had set up an old lava lamp and there it was glowing and bubbling and calling out to me to shoot it!

And of course, in true form - I took 75 photos of that lava lamp!  All at different settings, from different angles, this is why nothing is ever simple for me - its a real handicap...BUT I DID manage to whittle it down very quickly and have chosen my photo for day 1.

Alright - I whittled it down very quickly to TWO for day 1.  I'll have to work on this.

But the main thing to focus on here (no pun intended) is that I got my photo for the day in (with 6 minutes 2 spare no less!) and I'm ready for Day 2!

Project 365!

I'm very excited to have committed to, and started, a 365 day photography project.  I am committing to taking a photo a day for the next year.  If you click on the tab at the top entitled (very aptly!) "My Project 365" you will be taken to my year long photographic journey!  Please feel free to leave comments, or even join me and start your own!  I'm only on day 2, but I have to say, that so far, I'm very pleased and surprised at the results.  I am definitely NOT taking the pictures that I thought I would (I figured with such wonderful subjects living right under my nose, that they would definitely be the easy answer at least at first (and no doubt they soon will be!), but that has NOT been the case.

The thing that I'm finding most interesting, yes - even though it's only the second day! - is that I sort of had envisioned I would just be taking a quick snap and that would be that.  (of course, I should have realized, this is me we're talking about - simple and "just like that' are not in my vocabulary...).  As a matter of fact - on day 1, I couldn't narrow my pic down to just one image and so I posted two.  And now on day 2, I've posted three!!!  The good news is though, that on the first day, I actually snapped 78 photos (of my subject for the project) and today, I "only" snapped 56.  That's progress!

Top 11 for 2011 - My kids!

I"ve taken a LOT of photos this year, particularly in the past 6 months as I've taken the plunge into professional photography.  My children now run and hide when they see me coming, so it's become much more of a challenge to get shots of my own family, but they did recently indulge me (I got just about 15 minutes on a really cold day as my hanukkah present!).  2 of the images from this shoot are included in my favs for the year.  It was really hard to narrow it down to just 11 favorites (with 5 kids and a dog!), but I've done my best to pick the best of the bunch!  I love my crazy crew!!!