Do Life: Photography

The church started something new recently as a way of giving us a chance to get to know other people with similar interests. It's called Do Life and there are so many hobbies and clubs and interests, it's hard to imagine that there are any people left in the church not involved in something.

I signed up to be a part of the Photography club. We'll be meeting the first Saturday of every month and today was our first meeting.

It seems like it's going to be very interesting for me. We'll talk about different things that make good photos and learn new tricks and techniques to making our pictures stand out. Everyone in the group is at a different level of experience and we all want to learn for different reasons, so it should provide plenty of learning opportunities. It's like finally getting into the photography class I've been wanting to take (and not positive actually exists).

Each month we will be given an assignment to work on. We'll have the whole month to take the pictures asked of us and then we will choose our favorite and email it to the group leader to use for our class critiques. We'll also bring in a few of our other "good" photos on flash drive to work with on the computers.

It's a good thing I took the creative writing class last summer. It's gotten me more familiar with the idea of peer critiques, so that I don't feel quite so intimidated. It's good to know that my classes are giving me more than just an academic education.

This month's assignment is Patterns and Repetition.

After we were shown what that looks like and some ways of getting the great shots, I started thinking about what I see around me and how I could fulfill the assignment. Amazingly, once I started looking for it consciously, I couldn't stop. I've already thought up several shooting locations I'd like to attempt. I'm really excited to get started. It's going to be a fun month. Here's one of my first attempts to locate a nice pattern in life:

I have to admit, I'm pretty proud of this one. I just hope I can keep getting better ones as the month goes on.

The other cool thing we'll be doing is learning about the photo software available to us and how to make our photos better by using it. That's the stuff I'm really interested in learning. I'm starting to get the hang of seeing the shot and I'm already starting to see a difference in my pictures. Now I want to learn how to enhance the pictures even more. I'm really excited about this group.

I was considering setting up a blog to show my pictures as I grow with this group, but I've decided that instead I'm just going to set up a flickr account to showcase my pictures. Each month I'll set up a new set to fill with my assignment shots. I'd love feedback so to help me decide which ones to take into the group the next month. Even if you don't have input, feel free to follow my progress: http://www.flickr.com/photos/48127570@N03/   Like I said, I'd love to know what you think.