Challenge.

And again, I start of with saying 'it's been a while.' This is something that will probably never change. I'm lucky I write on here as often as I do, anyway. 

Life has just been soo busy lately! Not in a bad way either. I am not stressed or overwhelmed, just busy. 

And I like it. 

A lot.

Photography has been taking over my life, in a good way. When I am not doing a photo shoot I find my mind constantly sifting though ideas of new things to try. A little glimpse of something will spark my imagination and get me excited to try something new. 

Even though my creative juices are flowing nicely, I still feel as though I could use more practice and better myself. I always feel that way, but lately I am craving this! I have been reading a lot about photographers I look up to and their creative minds and a lot of their advise is to just keep shooting. The more you shoot the more practice. That's what is important..

Practice, practice, practice!

I have a photo idea book I flip through every now and then, it has great thing in it. One idea in it is a 30 day photo challenge. This is always something that I have wanted to try but haven't yet. I would like to take every photo in the challenge with my Canon and not my iPhone, but I find it difficult to carry my giant camera around with me unless I am going to shoot for a reason. But still, I am going to try to keep my iPhone out of this. 

The photo challenge they suggest is a thirty day self portrait challenge. This will be difficult for me because I do not take self portraits easily. Not that it's hard to set up a camera on self timer or anything, it's really not. It's just that I criticize myself so much to the point where I will actually make myself angry. 

The other day I had my boyfriend take some new head shots of me for my website. We went outside to a beautiful location with perfect overcast lighting. If it were anyone else in the photos I would of loved them. He snapped over 150 shots. When I uploaded them to my computer and deleted all the ones I hated of myself I ended up with just about 15. Even most of the ones I kept I am still not sure about.

I'm hoping to open my mind a bit with this challenge. I have to take one every day. They have to be about me or show me in some way, and I have to take the photo myself. That doesn't seem too bad right? It doesn't say my face has to be in every single one, I can do that!

Since I don't want to be showing a million self portraits of me on my photography page (weather or not my face is in them) I will be using this blog to document my photos. Maybe I will see some progress out of this, and maybe not. But it will be neat to see what kind of creative things I can come up with in the end.

Quick update on everything else in my life..Everything is great! Doing photography full time is something I have always wanted and so far it's going really well. 

I am trying to keep my head up about this weather, though. I need to keep photographing in it so it will inspire me and not get me down. I plan to use the cold season of being inside to better myself, physically and mentally. I have been working out and meditating, it's been wonderful. By the time the warm weather comes along again I am going to be prepared by feeling and looking great! That can't be soon enough.

Okay, photo one of this challenge.

I like this one, even though my face is in it. It being out of focus adds a softness where the black and white makes it look a little more dramatic.