Week 16 of 365 Challenge Shadow Week

Shadow week was challenging on a couple of days where it rained and I was lucky to catch the sun out in the early morning or evening. It saved me from having to create shadows indoors which I was hoping not to have to do. If there's one thing I've learned from this challenge so far it's that I really do prefer shooting outdoors in natural light and that wildlife, nature, and flower shots are my confirmed favorites. I think that once I've finished the whole 365 challenge I'll revisit the themes and take a close look at the ones that really challenged me and why. Next week it's Balance week. 

Have a great week :)

Week 15 of 365 Challenge Blurred Week

Blurred week was a bit of a blur lol. I spent most of the week helping to rearrange our workshop for my hubby's 50th birthday party this weekend. It always seems to be the favored place for the guys to hang out. Consequently I didn't get on my computer to down load my pics from my camera for most of the week and ended up uploading the whole seven together. I tried to blur each day's image in a different way. Vertical, horizontal, circular, speed blur and even a bit of wind movement. I'm quite happy with the results. In fact, I think this turned out to be a better green week than green week was. Next week is Shadows.

Have a great week :)

Week 14 of 365 Challenge Bird Week

Bird week was a lot of frustration and fun. The birds in my garden decided to hide whenever I went out with my camera. Thankfully work was finished on the edges and bridge at the local duck pond so the water was back where it should be. There's still some grass to be resown around the pond though so there are barriers up around the bare patches which made things interesting. I do miss the lake near our old house though, there were Canadian geese, Coots, Cormorants, Swans and Kingfishers there where this pond seems to be all ducks. It gives me a good excuse to go out and explore a bit more around this area though so it's not all bad.

Have a great week :)

Week 13 of 365 Challenge Architecture Week

Architecture has been an interesting challenge this week. I felt all week that my local buildings weren't good enough for this challenge as I was taking my shots. I guess I had a preconceived idea that I should be taking pictures of sky scrapers and that the much shorter buildings I live with didn't quite fit the theme. I've tried to capture a mixture of styles and eras in my shots but it's only a small selection of the variety here. The last pic is from a shopping centre in the nearby city, all the rest are from my small town. I've never taken building shots before so I'm not sure I've shot them in the best possible way but it was a fun week.

Have a great week!

Week 12 of 365 Challenge Green Week

Green week wasn't one of my best. I really wasn't feeling it this week. I felt like I was continually running around taking a last minute snap instead of thinking about what I wanted to take and planning my shots. Not sure if it was the subject or if I was just busier than usual. Better luck next week I hope.

Have a great week!

Week 11 of 365 Challenge. Fruit week

Seventy seven days into my 365 challenge and the excitement has started to wear off. I've now started posting my pics on Instagram every second or third day. Mainly because I'm taking most of my pictures with my camera and not my phone so I have to go on my computer and resize the pics and then email them to myself so I can upload them from my phone. Rather fiddly and annoying so doing a few at a time makes it more bearable. I've also cheated a few times and taken pictures with my phone. Our supermarket doesn't allow cameras so I sneakily took pics of some of the fruit with my phone. 

Next week is Green week the first of the color weeks. 

Have a great week!

Finding peace in the mayhem

Lately I've been following Joshua and Ryan the minimalists on their Instagram 31 day autumn clean out here and I've really been enjoying reading their tips on minimalism.

On day 13 two sentences really stand out for me 

 "The easiest way to organize your stuff is to get rid of most of it."

"Ultimately, organizing is nothing more than well planned hoarding."

I have to say here that I'm guilty of organizing and reorganizing my art and craft supplies and other areas of our home. In the past year I purged art supplies before we moved and then again a couple of months ago but it seems that it needs to be done again and much as I'd love to purge everything and have nothing to organize and continually tidy, I do love my hobbies and they come with a certain amount of stuff. Sometimes determining which stuff should be kept and which stuff isn't really needed is difficult.

As you can see in the picture above, I try to keep the clutter down as much as possible and create peaceful pauses in between the mayhem on the other shelves but somehow the shelves become overfull and the peaceful shelf starts to look like a great place to put the over-spill. (I should mention here that there are another two levels of shelves below this that are full of box files and paints. I couldn't fit them in the picture because of the dining table but the table doesn't disguise the mess in the shelves above) 

Part of the problem could be that I'm storing my cookbooks in one of the shelves now when I used to have them stored in the kitchen at our last house. Unfortunately I have nowhere to do that in the kitchen here, yet. 

Another part of the problem is having no spare shelves to put new art supplies when they come into the house. The 'one in one out' approach doesn't really work if, like me you buy a new tube of paint or art pad etc before your old one runs out so that it's there ready when you need it.  

Magazines are also becoming a bit of a problem on my shelves. I only buy 2 Photography magazines, one is monthly and the other bi-monthly, but I keep them for a while and Mum reads them too before they get cut up and used for collages and school projects. I started pulling out useful Photoshop tutorials and keeping those in clear file folders but as you can see on the top shelf on the left, I've collected far more files than I intended to so they too have become another area that needs to be sorted through. They've even displaced some of my photography books now. 

The magazines in the top right shelf are house and garden themed and were given to me by Mum when she had finished with them. We're currently doing up our house so these are a great source of ideas for now. Eventually they'll join the other magazines in the box for cutting up.

Add to all of this the seemingly continuous flow of paperwork coming from my children's schools and the steady stream of bills and other assorted junk mail that comes across my desk and it seems increasingly hard to find peace in the mayhem.

So, somehow I have to find the middle path between total clear-out and organized hoarding before I run out of space to work :D

I'll let you know how that works out. Have a great week :)

Week 10 of 365 Challenge. Ordinary things are beautiful week.

This week I've been experimenting with double exposures in camera and different Instagram filters. My favorite this week has got to be my wooden bowl. It was done using the Gingham filter. Next week is fruit week.

Have a great week :)