Week 7

Luck
7.5s f/16.0 ISO 100

It was cold and dreary today and I had no idea what to take pictures of.  I looked out the window and saw no light and only grey skies.  I was hoping to get a beautiful sunset tonight but looking out the window I didn't know if that was going to happen.  I decided to press my luck and wait.  There have been days where it was so miserable all day and then the clouds break and there was the most beautiful sunset ever.  I was press my luck and see if I would get that sunset.

While I was waiting for that sunset, Ariana went to her friend's house to play and I did our taxes and paid some bills.  After a few hours I pulled myself away from the computer and checked outside again.  Still no light.  I decided to keep waiting.  I did some laundry and edited some pictures.  Still no light.  I started to get a little worried.  I began to realize that there was not going to be a sunset.  What were we going to take pictures of?????  I had no ideas.  It looked so crappy out that I didn't even think portraits would look good.  There was no light at all to work with.  It was week 7 and I was plum out of ideas.  Only week 7 and no ideas I thought.  How would I ever make it to week 52?  What was I going to do?

I started walking around my house looking for anything remotely interesting to photograph.  My house is pretty boring and I couldn't find anything.  I looked out in the backyard and all I saw was melting snow and mud.  Yuck.  The end of winter and beginning of spring is never pretty.  I am so sick of winter and just want spring to get here already.  Then I remembered St. Patrick's Day was this week.  I started to think of how I could incorporate the holiday into the photo challenge.  I thought about the dried four clover I had in my jewelry box.  I really didn't want to take a picture of a dried up clover so I kept thinking.

I started to think about the photography lessons I had been I teaching Ariana.  I taught her about aperture the last few weeks and thought maybe I could teach about shutter speeds this week.  Then an idea came to me.  I could teach her about light painting.  I could teach her how you can leave the shutter open and paint light with a flash light!  This was how I was going to incorporate St. Paddy's Day into the challenge.  I was really excited to tell Ariana my idea.

When she got home from her friend's house I told her about the my idea.  She love the idea and was excited.  She knew what I was talking about because we did this over the 4th of July with sparklers.  In July she drew pictures of stars with the sparkers while I was taking pictures of the fireworks.  This time though, she will get to take the pictures too.  We had to wait for it to get dark first.  This is when she reminded me that we should have done this the day before.  We would have to wait longer for it to get dark outside since we had to change the clocks ahead this morning.  She was right but it was worth the wait.

We waited until it was dark and then went and got the camera and the tripod.  You must use a tripod if you are going to hold open the shutter.  We also used the D60 because I don't have a remote for the D700 yet.  One more thing to add to my list of camera equipment I need.

Ariana was the first one to take the pictures while I drew with the light.  I decided to paint four leaf clovers with the flash light.  It was so much fun.   We then switched and I took the pictures and Ariana drew with the light.  We kept going back and forth.  Then we started to get creative and write our names with the light.  We were outside quite awhile.  It was cold out there but we didn't care because we were having too much fun.  Ariana said this was her most favorite photo challenge yet.  I told her we would have to do this more often.  She agreed that we should.  We then decided to call it quits and go inside.  We were both pretty cold.  Ariana said she didn't mind that she was cold because at least there wasn't any mosquitoes.  Again she was right.

I picked "Luck" as the picture for the week because I made my own luck.  It was a grey dreary day and I was so uninspired.  It was the luck of the Irish that pulled me out of my photography idea slump.  I also thought it was fitting since it is St. Patrick's Day this week and I am part Irish.  Ariana also drew such a beautiful four leaf clover.  To get the green effect I edited the picture in CS4 and changed the color to green.

Rock Star

17.0s f.16.0 ISO 100

This picture was the runner up for this week.  If it wasn't St. Paddy's Day I would have picked this one.  To get this picture I told Ariana to strike a pose.  Then I used the light to trace her body.  I like how the light not only traces her body but also highlights her body and face just a touch.  In CS4 I changed the color of the light.  I like the effect of the different color of lights.  I think it makes the picture more interesting.   Ariana really loved this picture.  We will be doing more of these in the future.

Michelle

17.0s f/16.0 ISO 100

I took this picture and painted my name with the light.  I then changed the color in CS4.

Forever
12.0s f/16.0 ISO 100

We were all done and I was about to take the camera off the tripod when Ariana said, "Wait I want to do one more."  So I took one more picture.  This is what she made for me.  I will treasure it forever.