Picture Spring

Last month I took an online photography class hosted at Big Picture Scrapbooking and taught by the wonderful Tracey Clark of Shutter Sisters. I had a great time!

I learned of the class at the (now somewhat infamous) Mom 2.0 conference (because I can't stop talking about it). And though I was skeptical that I would be able to make time to shoot a photo every day, I thought I'd try. In the end, I came close. There were times when I had to play catch up, but I am proud to say I completed 29 of 30 assignments. Letting myself have that one, is a lesson in and of itself.

Carrying the camera with me even to and from the office provided more opportunities than I imagined it would. I also had time to play with and learn more about my still new Birthday lens. Most of all, I was inspired and truly enjoyed interacting with the class and posting my images to the classroom gallery. Many a night I was up far too late "playing." Having a personal project in the works rather than on a perma-back burner does wonders for my mental state of "not having enough time."

The hardest assignment (I thought) was a self portrait. That was day #2 or #3 and I thought, "oh lord, I can't do this." But I did. And I included the portraits in this slide show to prove it. My favorite assignment was probably "catch lights" because it was all about catching the light in eyes. I had two wonderful subjects for that one! Past that, I had a good time playing with shallow depth of field and blown out color.

I feel like the collection I came up with documents what turned out to be a month of some major milestones. B crawled for the first time and G learned to ride his bike without training wheels. Moreover, the blooms that were just beginning on April 1 had fully sprung by the end of the month. And, I admit there are a lot of flowers here. But flowers are easy targets for a girl with a camera AND let's not forget the class was called Picture Spring.

On April 29, my photo was featured on Shutter Sisters. I thought I might burst when I clicked there to see who the instructor picked to feature that day! Because no matter how often my mom (love you mom) and the rest of the family comment on my photos, a little recognition from Tracey Clark felt REALLY good.

I planned all along to somehow collect and share the photos. The slide show posted here seemed like a good way to share with everyone. Quality is degraded in a big way... but it was fun to put together. For the high quality version, I am going to print a photo book. It will be fun to flip through in about 20 years.