Thursday, October 08, 2009

7 Days Stole My Blog Time

I've not really been blogging much this week because I'm trying something new, taking more photos! I've been doing the 7 Days group project on Flickr, and man, taking one self portrait a day is a challenge. When my friend Bethany talked about it, and when my husband Joe participated last time, it sounded like fun but not that challenging. How hard can it be to take a picture of yourself each day? Well, after 6 days of it, it's much harder than I thought it would be.  Conjuring up creative ideas when I'm flipping through the work of hundreds of other photographers, talented, brilliant, skilled photographers. Then the whole process of shooting so I have some choices, figuring out how to make the photo look like it does in my head, and even just the basics of uploading and getting is situated on Flickr. All new things to me!

First of all I'm not the kind of person who takes a lot of pictures of myself. I don't hate it when other people do, I just don't myself. Joe is the photographer in our house. And though I took a couple of photography classes in high school I do not have the technical proficiency that I really need with our digital camera. And my serious sense of feeling awkward and uncomfortable when trying something new, (I hate it when I feel like I can't do something well) made me actually nervous about diving into this project. But you know what? It's actually been good for me. I stopped overthinking and just did it. What, she stopped overthinking? I know! Sounds impossible, but it's actually fun and spontaneous. And some of my favorite photos have been exactly that. I stopped worrying about whether the photos were perfect or fascinating or interesting enough. I figured I'm doing this for the challenge and the experience, so who cares if the photos are exactly what I thought they would be? I've liked most of them so far.  And I think I'll actually end up taking a lot more photos because of it. This week has been pretty insane at work, but the 7 days project has been a great stress reliever. Who knew? I guess I've got a new hobby, let's add it to the list.

Here are my photos so far, I'll have one more to close out tomorrow. (I did use a couple in the Omaha post, but it's my blog so I can post them again, right?)


7 Days Day 1: Killing Time at the Craft Show

7 Days: Day 2 - Race for the Cure

Day 3: Before and After

Day 4-What should I read next?

7 Days : 5 Upside Down Annalie

Day 6: Photo Inspiration

Day 7:  Dinner Bell

9 comments:

Katrina said...

Great pictures!! Is this 7 days thing an assignment a day? It sounds interesting! My favorite one is your first one!! It makes me smile!

Kassie said...

It's very open, just a self portrait a day, but they do have two theme days, day 2 was Writing and day 5 was Night, since Bethany was in town for lunch, we made our day 6 photo Night instead. You should join us next time, I think it's in the spring!

jastereo said...

Whoo whoo, does this mean I can buy some new camera equipment, you know, so we can both have some!?! Actually it's somewhat silly that I pretty much have enough for both of us to not have to share...

bethany actually said...

You hit on my favorite thing about 7 Days: long after the week is over, I'm thinking more creatively and looking at the world differently when it comes to taking pictures! I think being forced to think of 7 different ways to take my self-portrait (which requires an extra degree of creativity, because it's harder to plan and take a photo of yourself than of other people) sort of kick-starts my brain, and then looking at all the fantastic photos of all the other people in the group is so inspiring! I think I wrote about this a while back during 7 Days...yep, I did.

I'm so glad you played along this time! It's rather addictive, isn't it? :-) Katrina, if you want to open a Flickr account I'll invite you to join the group!

Kristendom said...

I love the pictures, and this totally makes me want to do this on my own, too. I'll have to join you all next time, but I may try it out before then, too.

Snowfairy said...

what a good looking week you had. I totally agree, 7 days has made me look at the world around me differently, to stretch and be more creative. It doesn't come easily but then the best photographs sometimes are happen quickly and without too much thinking. Also, I find it hard to be comfortable taking photos of me, so finding the right angle that represents me as I feel I look is a challenge.

sarah doow said...

You're right, it can be quite hard work - especially when you're on your 12th run! I'm glad you've had fun though and like Snowfairy said: you've had a very good-looking week ;-)

Anonymous said...

Love the pictures! Sherry

Kassie said...

Thanks, Sherry. It was a blast, your son's pics are fantastic!