Chrysta Rae Scavenger Hunt - March edition!

I participated in yet another +Chrysta Rae's Photography Scavenger Hunt in March. The hunts are fantastic, I am super sad I was unable to sign up for the latest one. I will be anxiously watching for the next sign-up!

In March the 10 hunt words were:
Regret
Strawberry
Mouth
Bubble
Landscape
Freeze Motion
Spill
Texture
Ant's Eye View
Brown

I had a lot going on during this hunt, but I was determined to get them done! Between moving and other life and work changes and demands it was tough but I think I got some good photos in the end!

Regret - there are a lot of subtle things going on in the background. I liked all the detail that I put into the photo. A last minute addition was the crack in the heart, I did that in photoshop as an afterthought while processing. I was not entirely satisfied with the quality of it but that was the best I could do at the time. 

I think this is my favorite photo. EVIL STRAWBERRY PEOPLE!! The Strawberry People are sacrificing the Blackberry People around the Banana Alter, consuming their strength for their evil purposes! This was so fun to make and take. Also to eat! They ended up as dessert that night!

This was for Mouth. It took me a while and by the end my lips were so raw and chapped! If I'd been thinking I would have done each on a different day to save on that. Oh well! Next time I know! Avengers Assemble! 

This one was for bubbles. It was just carbonated water. I took a series of shots as I poured it into the cup. After, in processing, I added in the colors to make it more dramatic. I liked creating the transition from red to purple to blue, as if there were the two colors mixing. It was also fun to practice the technique of altering the colors of a photo and play with photoshop. 

We moved to a nice complex. This is the main house and pool of the complex. I took this photo one morning on my way to work. I originally thought to take it for Brown, since the building was brown and the trees were still leaf-less. It turned out to be better for landscape. 

This one was texture. I liked the texture of the old fashioned light. The candle had a crazy glare that radiated all over, I used processing to tone it down. I am not wholly crazy about this photo but it was the best I could do at the time. 

Ant's Eye View. The kitty is going to eat the ant! I liked the extreme close up of the kitten, though this may not have been the best photo for the prompt. I was having a real hard time being creative on this one. 

Ok, cop out. This was one of the first photos I took with my new camera about a year earlier... I went to a Colorguard Competition with a friend and snapped this. I was out of time and didn't have a photo for Freeze Motion. Looking through my old photos I found this one and reprocessed it for my purposes. 

Spill... the jelly beans! I wanted to do something different with this one other than just the beans spilling out. I noticed that our counter was very reflective so I decided to do a touch of color on the reflection rather than the actual beans. 

Brown. The science teacher I worked with this year had a bunch of plants in our common area. I liked all the motion in the weaving of the vines. 

Reflections

For the Chrysta Rae Scavenger Hunt I had the challenge to do reflection.

Sadly I tipped my hand and posted a picture of me messing around. I should have kept it to myself because my fooling around turned out to be my best photo. But oh well, live and learn!

I enlisted my model Meg to help me with reflection as well.

This is what I submitted for REFLECTION

This is a Selfy picture I did with REFLECTION in mind

Another option for REFLECTION. Maybe I should have put the broken glass on the one I submitted

Trying to play around with the world outside the mirror being cracked instead of the mirror, but it didn't turn out right

I tipped my hand... this is the best of them all and I shouldn't have let my excitement get the better of me

First Model, first portrait session!

The Chrysta Rae Photography Scavenger Hunt for July featured the prompt model. I figured this would be a great opportunity to try out photographing someone. Usually I photograph nature, so this was a challenge.

Since I was already going to be out of my comfort zone taking portrait photos I decided to ask one of my good friends to help me out. That way if I totally screwed it up, whatever I got to hang out with a friend!

While I was there my friend, Meg, wanted me to take some pictures of her puppy Tucker.

This is the photograph I submitted for model in the Chrysta Rae Photography Scavenger Hunt.

I think that this photography session turned out great! I had fun and got some great pictures. I did end up with a dead spider in my hair, which freaked me out, but it was worth it for some great pictures! If the spider had been alive... that is another story entirely!

Thanks Meg and Tucker!

Scavenger Hunt: Spring!!

Again with the Chrysta Rae Scavenger Hunt! As I said in the last post, Chrysta Rae gave us 10 prompts that we had to hunt for and photograph. I revealed my balloon picture yesterday, as well as the process I went though to take it.

Today I will reveal SPRING!

My submission for SPRING!

This one was difficult for me. I had SO many ideas! Unfortunately, I was unable to DO most of my ideas. Ideally I wanted to take a picture of someone jumping (springing) by a freshwater spring with pretty flowers and a slinky. Every type of spring I could think of. I was unable to get to a spring. This made me sad. I thought of taking a picture of a flower, or a flower with a pencil spring or slinky but I thought that there would be a lot of those kind of pictures. I couldn't think of anything interesting to do with just a slinky, my creativity was failing me. I was completely at a loss of what to do.

Now, I am a teacher, and I am almost always after school with extra help, a club, or just grading or planning. One day there was a group of students staying after, some of our more outgoing and energetic students. They were playing catch while waiting for extra help to start and getting pretty rambunctious. Then I got the idea to make THEM jump for me!

I got a group of them out in the hall and told them they would get extra credit if they helped me out with my project! They were excited to help me out, until I made them jump up and down for a minute straight! I was testing out different settings on my camera and experimenting. The kids weren't too upset, they were getting extra credit after all, and they got to see me sprawl out on the floor in the hall of the school in my pretty work clothes. They thought I was nuts.

OVEREXPOSED! There are really 6 kids in this picture... jumping for a minute straight.

I changed a few of the settings and tried again.

I decided that I hated the lighting and there was nothing I could do to fix it.

I knew I was going to re-take the picture, but I had to figure out when and who I could con into doing it this time. My chance came when I had a pair of kids for extra help a few weeks later. Again, I promised some extra credit if they would jump for me. Again they thought I was nuts for sprawling on the floor (this time in a long flowy skirt!) 

Scavenger Hunt! Balloons!

 So the thing that got me started with the photography was Chrysta Rae's Scavenger Hunt on G+. Like any good scavenger hunt you are given items that you have to acquire. However, the catch is that you have to acquire a photograph of the item, and it has to be more unique and awesome than anyone else's!

For each hunt you are given 10 TOP SECRET items/words/etc to hunt for. The first rule of Fight Club Scavenger Hunt is don't talk about Scavenger Hunt! Well, sort of. You can talk about it with others in the hunt. But you shouldn't divulge your ideas because you don't want anyone to accidentally steal your creativity.

The thing I love is that it builds a great community of new and veteran photographers all willing to work together and help each other out!

The due date for the photos was last weekend. I have been anxiously waiting for the photos to be shared and the results to be posted since!

Today the first batch of photos have been released! The prompt for this batch was Balloon!
Here are ALL the photos:  http://bit.ly/MNHTJN

And here is my entry:

 After taking a number of O K balloon photographs and deciding they just weren't good enough:

 I got an idea! Have my husband shoot the balloons with an arrow! And how can I make that stand out more... Oh, I know! Fill the balloons with paint! And since I'm playing with paint, I might as well stick them on a canvas and make a painting out of it!

So I sent my hubby out to get me a canvas, I got some water balloons and I poured some acrylic paint into them and filled them with the hose outside our apartment. My husband pulled out his fabulous bow and his arrows and we set up to shoot in the backyard. Our awesome landlords have said they do not mind us shooting into the brush behind the house, and our landlord happened to be watching this particular fun! He was entertained by it, it's so nice to have landlords that are cool with bows and arrows, paint and canvases, and cameras in the backyard.

Setting up! Put down newspaper, got a traffic cone to prop the canvas up with, and taped the balloons to the canvas.

Right before my photo.

Right after my photo. PAINT SPLATTER!

Just after the second balloon popped.

He missed but it looks cool sticking out like that!

Many misses, that last one was hard to get! This is as it was popping and running down.

The canvas after we were done shooting it.

Then we decided to drop balloons onto the canvas!

It DIDNT POP! It just bounced!

BOUNCE! 

Then finally SPLOOSH!

All in all, this was a blast! And with the acrylic paint it was pretty easy to wash away with the hose. The paint was too watered down and didn't really stay on the canvas. I love the holes in the canvass and I have set it aside for future painting!