This week’s 52frames theme was Complementary Colors, meaning the photo was meant to contain hues that are opposites on the color wheel. I was up to my eyeballs in old wallpaper last week, it was gray and rainy, and Rockford was still out of town. I am not going to pretend that I didn’t phone it in this week.
I noticed that the lilies Rockford had ordered for me had a little bit of burgundy in them that matched perfectly with their green leaves, so I grabbed the camera and took a few pictures and called it a day.
52frames, week 4: complementary colors “Rockford was in Japan and all I got were some lilies. (And chocolates and an Oregon Trail print. He’s a good husband.)”
This week’s theme has me a little stumped. I’m going to have to go outside to find my subject, but it’s supposed to be cold and rainy all this week, too! I may just have to grab an umbrella and — in the immortal words of Tim Gunn — make it work.
Last week’s 52 Frames challenge was Lines. At first I thought the goal was just going to be to take a picture of some lines, but then I read the very helpful weekly email and discovered that it was actually more about composing the photo with a “leading line” to guide the viewers eye to something. “How to use leading lines for better compositions” at Digital Photography School and Eric Kim’s “Street Photography Lesson #4: Leading Lines” both offer sound advice, and Mashable’s “16 Perfectly Composed Leading Lines Photos” has, as the title suggests, some strong examples to study.
It was very gray and rainy here all last week, and I only made one attempt to get my Lines picture between Sunday and Wednesday. On Thursday, though, the kids had a couple of classes downtown. It was still cold and gray out, but I used the time to walk about downtown in search of a good photo.
52Frames week 3: Lines. “Arcade”
I think it would’ve been stronger if I’d had a model to pose at the end of the photo, but I’m pretty pleased with the result event without a defined focal point.
The second 52Frames assignment was Silhouette. I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but I wasn’t sure exactly how to achieve it so I took a couple of Pete’s action figures outside to play around with the camera and try to figure out what I was doing. The Yoda picture above the post title turned out wildly out of focus, but I liked it anyway. He’s so mighty and dignified for such a little guy.
The first picture I took was of my old standby model, Marsha T. Cat. She was sitting in the window and the light was coming in just-so. It was an opportunistic moment that wasn’t quite what I wanted it to be. Later, at the playground, the swingset seemed like a good place to nab a silhouette photo. The large tree and the power lines made the background a little too busy, though.
After goofing around for a few days with no guidance, I decided to do some technique research. I found a few good, helpful articles on capturing silhouettes:
Even with those tips, though, I couldn’t get the contrast as sharp as I wanted it to be. The “extra credit” option for this week was to do the picture using only artificial light, and it occurred to me when Pete was playing “Disney Infinity” that I might be able to use the light from the TV to capture his silhouette. Alas, he is very wiggly and our TV is on the small side and so that plan didn’t work out so well. It did, however, lead me to the idea to use light from my laptop.
I’ve seen lots of beautiful, sunset-backed silhouette pictures, and they made me want something bright and colorful as backdrop. I looked through some of Paul Gauguin’s Tahiti paintings and eventually picked “Les Montagnes Tahitiennes.” I posed one of Pete’s “Infinity” characters in front of it — it should be pretty clear which one it was — and viola! “L’Art de Canard et ‘Les Montagnes’ ” was born.
52Frames week 2: Silhouette. “L’Art de Canard avec ‘Les Montagnes’ “
My eldest nephew got a new camera for Christmas, and he’s going to be taking a photography class this semester. He isn’t officially participating in the 52Frames challenge, but he’s going to try out a couple of the assignments along the way. Here’s his take on the silhouette:
This week’s 52frames theme was Complementary Colors, meaning the photo was meant to contain hues that are opposites on the color wheel. I was up to my eyeballs in old wallpaper last week, it was gray and rainy, and Rockford was still out of town. I am not going to pretend that I didn’t phone it in this week. 
