Projects I Have Started

The Photo-a-Day Project.

The presidential biographies project.

The 52 Dates project.

The terribly tardy bakers challenge.

The 100 books project.

Projects Still In Progress

The presidential-bio one.

Projects I Have Completed

…

I could let that 0% success rate get me down. Instead, I’m just going to start another new project!

I haven’t been using my camera all that much recently, and I’ve been looking for something to push me to change that. I’d also like to shake the weird, shy feeling that I get sometimes when I use my “real” camera rather than my phone’s camera. I’m hopeful that 52Frames will help on both fronts.

52Frames is a community of experienced and aspiring photographers, all working from a new theme each week. I think there’s constructive criticism and feedback involved, which is always a little scary.

The first week’s assignment was to take a self-portrait. We had a fire pit in the back yard on New Year’s Eve, and I liked the light and the shadows that were coming off of it. I tried to take a picture of myself there, but I hadn’t set up a tripod and my arms weren’t quite long enough to capture what I wanted with the lens I was using. I could’ve switched to my other lens — I have an 18-55mm and a 55mm, and I was using the 55 — but I was sick and didn’t feel like moving a whole lot. So I took one of the pictures that didn’t work so well and smashed it up with a picture of some Christmas lights I’d taken the same evening. And here’s the result:

One of my goals for the future is not to rely too heavily on Photoshop. I went with this composite, though, because I tend to try to hide or fade into the background and I thought this reflected that impulse pretty well.

I’m planning to share each week’s photo with you here, so feel free to goad me about it if I stop. Are you embarking on any new projects for 2015?