365 Project: My Top 5 from the First 30 Days & An Honorable Mention

In July, on my birthday, I began a 365 Project: taking at least one photo (more, so far) every day and posting it on Flickr (though should you ever choose to do so, you can post your pictures wherever you like).  It’s taken me a while to sift through and narrow it down, but I wanted to share my Top 5 from the first 30 days, the ones I liked best.

Without further adieu, here they are in chronological order:

A Sky So Vast

A Goldfinch Amongst Her Favorite Treats

The Dew In the Grass

Rose of Sharon and Light

Natural Subject, Abstract Composition

Then there’s the honorable mention:

One of Those Days

If you’re interested in reading the story behind the picture, click the link and read it on Flickr.  The nutshell version, as should be obvious, was that I wasn’t having a great day that day, and had few photos to choose from, so I chose the one more true to the day.

I was so nervous about posting that one.  I’m not terribly comfortable in front of the camera, and on top of it, this showed me at a vulnerable moment.  It wasn’t my best work from a technical perspective.   Something about it touched a nerve, though.  I got a lot of favorable responses to it.  (I linked it on Twitter and Facebook, so there are comments there in addition to the favorites and comments on Flickr.)  It has grown on me because of that, and being brave by putting it out there is making me less afraid of turning the lens on myself.   Maybe one day I will feel comfortable in front of the camera.

Finding Focus

Me behind my camera. Taken 7/24/2012 with Canon EOS Rebel XS.

This is how people have seen me a lot lately.

Words still aren’t flowing freely for me, so I decided to concentrate on photography.  Where the Muses close one door they tend to open another, or least open a window.  I gifted myself a macro lens for my birthday, and thought, “Why don’t I try a 365 Project?”   A little over two weeks ago, on my birthday, I started my year of taking and posting at least one photograph to my Flickr stream daily.  It’s proving to be quite creatively nourishing.

I want to write here more, but I just feel so quiet, and I have to trust that.  Things are shifting.  Ideas are glimmering on the horizon.  But nothing is fully-developed yet.  It’s kind of par for the course when you figure out that you may not want what you used to want, when you’ve spent most of your life doing what’s expected of you and wake up one day and realize you’ve lost your own inner voice in the cacophony and you have to find it again.

In the meantime, photography is my creative focus.  I am shooting more than one picture most days, and finding it difficult to decide between them some days, so I’ll probably post my favorite outtakes here going forward, and maybe the ones I consider my top five 365 Project photos every month.

Sabbatical Views: Adventures in Black & White, Part I, The Bleak & The Beautiful

Signs of the times: boarded-up building downtown that was once Main
Street Mall. Taken 6/5/12. Canon Rebel XS.

Woodpile and shed in a sea of clover. Taken 5/8/12. Canon Rebel XS.

Rustic fence posts sans fence. Taken 5/8/12. Canon Rebel XS.

Grasses. Taken 5/8/12. Canon Rebel XS.

Sabbatical Views No. 2: The Moon And A Misty Morning

My Writing Muse is currently ignoring me–more on that later–but my Photography Muse is warming up, even inducing me to play with manual focus and with more processing than I normally would.  Here are a few of my favorite recent nature shots, the moon and some loveliness from a recent morning walk in the mist:

Taken 4/30/12 with Canon Rebel XS + EF-S 55-250mm IS lens + tripod.

Taken 5/3/12 with Canon A3300 IS.

Taken 5/3/12 with Canon A3300 IS.

Taken 5/3/12 with Canon A3300 IS and vignetted/edited in Picasa.

Sabbatical Views No. 1: Small Town Quirks

Taken 4/27/2012 with Canon Rebel XS and EF-S 18-55mm IS lens.

Is that…?

Taken 4/28/2012 with Canon Rebel XS and EF-S 55-250mm IS lens.

Yes, it’s a fake owl, which I had never noticed until yesterday. Supposedly, he is there to scare away the pigeons. Didn’t see any pigeons, so it must be working.

Taken 4/28/2012 with Canon PowerShot A 3300 IS on “Toy Camera Effect”

Vintage-inspired signage goodness.

Taken 4/28/2012 with Canon Rebel XS and EF-S 55-250mm IS lens.

Ladies Powers…What exactly could those be?