My Week of Photos - Back at it

My DSLR and I had a little bit of a break. So this week, we are back at it, capturing daily photos using the Capture Your 365 daily prompts for this month.

ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/50 sec

Exposure: My husband and I went to a local nursery and bought some California native plants for our backyard. When I saw the prompt for this day, I wasn't really sure what to capture. So after we got the plants in the ground, I grabbed my camera and decided to focus in on these plants, all while trying to get the best exposure of the overall setting as I could. I took this photo late in the afternoon. The lighting was really great. I wish I could show you the histogram of this capture! I know this is not the most exciting photo, but the histogram is just about a perfect bell curve! And if you have ever really looked at the histogram of any of your photos, you know a bell curve histogram is a pretty exciting thing!

ISO 100, f/3.5, 1 sec.

Go Wide: The widest angle I can go with my current lenses is 18mm. Now, I could have jumped in my car and driven down the road a bit to capture maybe the valley or the mountains, but I decided to see what I could capture right in my own backyard. Since the sun had just set, I slowed down the shutter speed for this one. Loving the new solar lights along the fence!

ISO 100, f/1.8, 1/320 sec

F/1.4: Couldn't go as wide as the prompt on this one, since my 50mm lens is an f/1.8, so I made do with what I have. Picked up these roses are the grocery store for $2.99 the other day. Took them outside and up against the blue of my daughter's playhouse. Blue and yellow are my two favorite colors.

ISO 100, f/1.8, 1/640 sec

Simple: This little frame sits on my desk. A simple little frame with one simple word that makes me happy just thinking about the beach. Maybe I need to go on a day trip to the beach soon...

This wraps up my week of photos! What photo challenges are you currently following?

My Week of Photos

This past week, I didn't have a chance to pick up my DSLR as much as I would have hoped to, but I did manage to play around with three prompts from the Capture Your 365 daily prompts:

f/7.1, ISO 100, 1/400 sec

Day 13 - Mostly White: Yes, we live in California, where everyone thinks are days are filled with blue skies at all times. But we have been receiving such much needed rain this month. So we have seen our fair share of cloud filled skies. These cloud filled skies usually produce some pretty spectacular sunsets, but I just haven't made the time to venture out of my warm house to capture those sunsets...yet.

f/5.6, ISO 1600, 1/13 sec

Day 14 - Black And White: this little spot was just screaming to be a black and white photo! This clock and stack of books sit on a little table next to our couch. By focusing on the clock, the stack of books is slightly out of focus, which was precisely the look I was going for. I tried moving things around a bit, but this composition looked the best to me.

f/5.6, ISO 1600, 1/8 sec

Day 16 - Sepia: a big storm blew through here the other morning, so I lit a few candles to brighten up the room a little. I tried shooting this one vertical, but I liked the horizontal better. And because all the book covers are different colors, I like the way this looks in sepia.

So, what have you captured this week using your camera?

Linking up this week with Black & White Wednesdays

My Week of Photos

One of my goals this year is to pick up my DSLR and use it every single day. To help me along the way, I will mainly be using the daily photo prompts from Capture Your 365. But every now and then, I might use another photo challenge list or get a little creative on my own.

This week, I pretty much stuck with the list from Capture Your 365 except for one (and I will let you know which one that was). So here is my week of photos to share with you:

f/1.8, 1/80 sec, ISO 400 with 50mm lens

Day 6 - Pushing Myself: I fell out of my routine of walking at least three times a week during the holidays, but our January winter weather is not cooperating. Well, to be honest, we really do need the rain here in California. So I guess I will just keep a better eye on the weather and schedule my walks on days when I know it shouldn't rain.

f/2.5, 1/60 sec, ISO 400 with 50mm lens

Day 7 - Good For Me: I have been using the MapMyWalk app for some time now to record my weekly walking activity. I love being able to see the progress I have made.

f/2.0, 1/160 sec, ISO 800 with 50mm lens

Day 8 - Where I Stand: On these cold winter afternoons, I like to treat myself to a hot homemade drink, with whipped cream of course. After all, those calories that I burn on my walks have to be made up somewhere.

f/2.5, 1/125 sec, ISO 800 with 50mm lens

Day 9 - A Relationship: I am getting ready to work on two big quilting projects, so I needed to do some calculations and some test blocks. A quilting ruler and a rotary cutter are the perfect match for a quilting project.

f/2.0, 1/80 sec, ISO 800 with 50mm lens

Day 10 - Monochrome: a monochrome photo is one that can either be black and white or one in varying tones of one color. Since we had homemade waffles for breakfast on Sunday morning, I thought they would be the perfect subject for this prompt.

f/2.5, 1/1600 sec, ISO 100 with 50mm lens

Day 11 - Complimentary: since it wasn't raining on this day, I found a couple of complimentary colors in my home and took them in the backyard to use the natural daylight. Looks like I didn't quite focus on my subject very well. That is why we practice, right?

f/5.6, 1/50 sec, ISO 100 with a x2 macro lens

Day 12: the prompt for today was draw. Since I couldn't think of anything to capture using this prompt, I decided to try out one of my new macro lenses. These lenses screw into my existing 18-55mm lens. I am looking forward to experimenting with these more this year.

So that is my first full week of photos using the Capture Your 365 photo prompts!

Are you participating in the photo challenge? Be sure to share a link to where you are posting your photos. I would love to see how you capture these same daily prompts!

Capture Your 365 in 2016

Three years ago, I embarked on a new adventure. I set a goal to pick up my DSLR camera everyday for a year. I followed a daily prompt and did my darndest to post those photos once a week here on my blog.

Since acquiring an iPhone, my Nikon has been a little neglected. This year, I am hoping to change that. So I have decided to again participate in the Capture Your 365 photography challenge!

I am a little behind already for the month, but I have two photos to share with you this week:

f/2.0, 1/100 sec, ISO 400 with 50 mm lens

Day 4 - Need This: Winter is not my favorite season. When I saw these yellow roses at the grocery store, I knew they were just what I needed to brighten up these cold, rainy winter days.

f/1.8, 1/125 sec, ISO 100 with 50 mm lens

Day 5 - Makes Me Happy: Now I know I just said winter is not my favorite season, but we live in California. Thankfully, today, I did not need to go anywhere. So I could stay home and enjoy the much needed rain for our area from the comfort of my warm cozy home.

Want to follow along with the daily prompts? You can find the January list on the Capture Your 365 blog.

Next week, I will have a new collection of photos to share.

Practicing Photography

Many years ago, when I was in elementary school, I took a Kodak Brownie camera with me to camp and took some pictures. When my parents developed the film, they liked them so much that they mounted them on mat boards and hung them in our house.

That initial introduction to picture taking began my love of photography.

Fast forward many years and I have moved beyond a small film camera to using my iPhone and my Nikon for all of my photography.

As much as I love the convenience of using my iPhone (and it takes better pictures than my first digital camera!), I love the versatility of using my DSLR and learning how to take better pictures.

Two years ago, I participated in a 365 project and worked on using my DSLR to take a picture every single day for a whole year. Phew! That was quite a project.

What I loved about that project was it helped me to practice using my camera every day. Capturing different subjects, using different settings, and being creative.

Recently, I have been wanting to use my DSLR more, so I was happy to see a Practice Ebook available from Katrina Kennedy. I love that this book is self-paced and I can work through it when my schedule permits.

So far, I have worked through the first two exercises. Let me show you what I captured (these are all straight out of the camera):

ISO 100, f/1.8, 1/250 sec

ISO 100, f/2.5, 1/160 sec

ISO 100, f/3.5, 1/80 sec

ISO 100, f/5, 1/40 sec

ISO 100, f/7.1, 1/20 sec

ISO 100, f/10, 1/10 sec

ISO 100, f/14, 1/5 sec

It was fun to use my old Brownie camera as the subject for each of these photos. One thing I learned about this exercise is that there is a minimum focal length for each of my lenses (hmm, no wonder I can't focus when I try to get too close!)

Are you wanting to improve your DSLR photography? I encourage to take a peek at Katrina's Practice Ebook.  It is very reasonably priced and goes through a lot of fundamentals. I am looking forward to working through more exercises and hope to share more of what I am capturing along the way.