Photography class week 4

Well, last week was one of the hardest and longest I've had in a long time between being really sick myself as well as nursing other family members through, plus a science fair, decorating my husband's office and six thousand other things. Actually, I'm still recovering and now two more members of the family are sick!

Anyway, for this week I honestly didn't have time to shoot until today and I ran into the same problem I often do, which is that I have great ideas but lack the technical know-how to pull off the ideas. I chose to tell a story in one image with my daughter Sarah. She is our princess with four brothers, so my idea was to have her dressed up in her ballet leotard etc. and looking super girly, surrounded by the boys' basketballs, etc. on the basket ball court. Well, the wind picked up so much that she was freezing in her leotard and the balls were blowing everywhere. It was also too cold to execute my second idea, which was to have her in a ballet pose on the trampoline with my boys sprawled out around her. Finally, I gave up the outdoors and came inside. I had her sitting in her pink room, while I shot her playing with her Barbies. I tried to add some conflict by having two of her brothers on the bed with her playing with their robots, but I just couldn't seem to get the right angle to catch that "telling" shot. So what I ended up with was just my little girl in her pink room. I did get some good shots of her though, and I feel like I'm starting to be able to apply some of the principles I've learned so far in the class, in reducing, different perspectives etc.

For my self-portrait, I had my husband take some photos of me. I'm such a novice myself though, that I didn't really know what to tell him. I've never been very photogenic. I have a hard time relaxing when I know some one is taking my picture! But we did have fun, and I'm starting to learn about shadows, although I'm still not sure how to avoid them!