Done and Done ... 30 Day Photography Challenge Days 25-30

It's nearing the end of the first day of 2014. Woo Hoo!

I have been one busy chaquita! I've finished two fiber-wrapped brooches that have been languishing on my workbench for, dare I admit it, years, and I've revised some acrylic paintings I had previously started, to be more in line with my goal of fearlessness in my art this year. I'm takin' chances, folks! And I must admit that the paintings have a bit more verve and interest than they did previous to my adaptations.

But ... today's post is to wrap up those last six challenge subjects that never got posted. The photographs were taken, but one thing or another circumvented them being uploaded to my blog. In one fell swoop, I'm posting the remaining challenges: Strangers, Close-Up, Celebration, Flowers, Black and White, Self Portrait. Then I be done with this particular challenge (Thank you, Lori Sanstedt) and I can move on to bigger and better personal challenges.

I enjoy challenges such as this when my creativity lags a bit and I need a little something to prime the pump. This exercise helped a lot.

Some subjects were easier and more comfortable than others, but I liked the subjects with which I don't normally work. I've not done much in the way of photographing people and I think in the coming months I would like to explore the human animal a bit more with my camera lens. I cringe at self-portraits and being included in any photographs, but it is a fact of life so needed to get over my aversion.

We're such a color-oriented society, but I liked working with the Black and White subject to get back in touch with contrasts, textures and composition.

Happy New Year!

Day 30 Self Portrait

Day 29 Black & White (Tinman Gallery doorway entry)

Day 28 Flowers (Supermarket orchids)

Day 27 Celebration (Winter Solstice)

Day 26 Close-Up (Workbench Tools)

Day 25 Strangers (Garland Post Office)

Day 24 of 30-Day Photography Challenge (Animal)

Day 24 Animal

No-brainer for this one. I happen to live with an animal by the name of Suki Kabuki Tuki Tuki, or Suki to her closest friends and select associates.

Suki and I have been together since I saw her photograph on a Small Dog Rescue website in Blaine, WA about 8 years ago. The photo showed her in a plastic cone,  just recently out of surgery. She was a mess. But she was a mess for which I instantly fell.

Suki, or Anabelle or Daisy Mae or whatever she had been named by the rescue, had originally been the beloved pet of a woman who passed away and the woman's children were saddled with their mother's dog. An accident--legitimate--befell the dog, which was rushed begrudgingly to the vet's office. It turned out the people didn't want to, or couldn't, pay for the necessary surgery and they instructed the dog be put down. The vet called the rescue, the rescue paid for the surgery, which necessitated the removal of a shattered eye. I saw the dog on the website and the promptly re-named Suki has been with me since.

Miss Suki is the subject of today's challenge.

Day 23 Patterns

Yes, again I can't decide which to use. I loved the patterns carved in the soapstone and the patterns in the fan, even the ribs of the fan make a pattern, a repetition. I loved the pattern of the vintage molded glass. And to finish off the trio of photographs, I love the pattern of the dots in the day lily.

Patterns ... love 'em!

Another Double Up ... Days 21 and 20

Day 21 Faceless Self Portrait

I tried taking a photograph of my head from the back without any of my face showing. I tried a goodly number of shots and all of them turned out looking like Cousin It of the Addams Family.

Back to the drawing board.

Feet! This is an apt self-portrait because I LOVE to go barefoot whenever possible, any time of the year. I do bow down to the radical drop in winter temperatures and will then sometimes wear socks, but chances are barefoot is how you'll find me around the house.

This has been a good challenge, because it forced me to consider what other than a face could be considered a self-portrait. I thought of photographing my hands, but that would be hard to do if one is holding an iPhone camera. And I had already included my hand in a previous photograph.

The photos I took of the back of my head were interesting. I don't often look at the back of my head in my mirror. I usually comb or brush my hair and assume that the back is good to go. However, I am intimately acquainted with my toes, as in applying nail lacquer or accidentally stubbing my toe on a table leg.

I've enjoyed looking at things from a different perspective. Working with yesterday's challenge was a surprise. I wasn't sure what I would find at the bottom of my purse. I toss everything in there and oftentimes it's quite a while until it gets cleared out. Whew! Nothing incriminating. This time.

Day 20 In My Bag

Day 18 My Shoes

Day 18

My Shoes

30 Day Photography Challenge

My shoes? Sure why not. I slide open my closet door to a tumble of rights and lefts. A good start. Then I saw a dusty bag at the back and yanked it out from under some other shoes. My tango dancing shoes! Oh my, I haven't used them at all since moving to Spokane. I had so much fun with that.

Just beyond the dancing shoes you'll see the clod-hoppers I now wear in Spokane oh-so-very-cold-in-the-winter. Not good for tango.

It was nice to see the sexy black heels, reminded me of what once was. And who knows? I might get back on the dance floor. I see there's something starting Monday nights. I just might check it out.

Day 17 Technology ... that little gizmo holds HOW MANY photographs?

Technology is as technology does. I'll be the first to acknowledge I don't understand a thing about computers and programming and how everything connects. I do understand I would be in a world of inconvenience if I didn't have it at my finger tips. Look at this little thumb drive! Just look at it! It's my back-up for thousands of photographic images. All on that little gizmo. Perhaps I should be backing everything up on the Cloud, but I'm not ready and willing for that just yet.

It's exciting to use this ever-developing technology, even though I feel I'm stumbling, fumbling along trying to keep up. Looking ahead to what's just on the horizon in technological advancement is amazing, the stuff of science fiction. I look forward to the next incredible breakthrough. It's change in the making.

And look at what impact technology has had, is having, on photography! Oh my!

Day 17

Technology

30 Day Photography Challenge

Double Your Pleasure ... Day 16 AND Day 15

Whoops! I forgot to upload my 30 Day Photography Challenge subject for yesterday, so I'm combining it with today's upload.

Day 16 subject is "A Good Habit."  I certainly have a lot of not so good habits, but one that serves me well and which I am most in the habit of performing is writing in my daily journal. Although some days it's more like ranting and raving, or bemoaning, or regretting, or celebrating, or praising, or self-congratulating. That's what is so effective for me about maintaining a personal journal. I can vent or be silly or be too serious and I'm the only one who knows. I value this good habit as a means of anchoring myself.

I don't write anything of earth-shattering importance, no secrets to take to my grave, nothing really of any merit other than to myself.

I got to thinking back to a time when I wondered what happened to my Grandma Lyon's journals, which I had learned she wrote. But none of the family knew what happened to them. It made me think about how fewer people are actually writing things down, versus a digital means of journaling. A time will probably come where nothing will be written, there'll be no journals with family photos tucked in, or a winning ribbon from the local art show, or dried rose from an anniversary bouquet.

Day 15 photo subject matter was "Silhouette." I took a photograph of the silhouette of a poinsettia, but you can still see bracts of color, not in silhouette. Something better than nothing, eh?

Day 16   A Good Habit (Journal Writing)

Day 15   Silhouette (Poinsettia)

Day 14 Eyes

My sister Mel and I chatted about eyes tonight. We came up with eyes of a potato, eye of the tiger, eye of a needle, cat's eye, the evil eye, the stink eye, not a dry eye in the place. I have a carved wood mask with a Third Eye, I have a Shark's Eye shell I collected from a beach on Honeymoon Island, Florida, I have a carved wood monkey with a fez and crazy eyes, and I have African made glass beads to ward off the evil eye. It's amazing how many references there are to eyes and so many choices for photographing.

Photograph my own eye? It's not to be found. Both of my old lady eyes are disappearing into my eye lid folds, it's quite amazing that I can still see out of these ol' slits!

No, today I'm fulfilling the challenge with tiger eye cabochons. I wish I had them set in a fabulous piece of jewelry so I could capitalize on the opportunity. Alas, no bodacious jewelry with these cabs ... yet.

Day 14

Eyes

30 Day Photography Challenge

Uncut Tiger Eye Slab and Cabochons

Day 12 Sunset ... and change

I don't get many sunset opportunities where I now live. With trees, buildings blocking my view I don't see much western sky, just straight up sky. Today, however, there wasn't any appreciable sunset. It seemed to go directly from freezing dismal afternoon to freezing dismal dusk.

I referenced my inventory of sunsets, looking for a sunset taken on this date, December 6, and the only one taken on this date was back in Birch Bay in 2010. Coincidentally, that was the month and year that I made my decision to eventually leave Birch Bay, a bittersweet decision. Not sure where I was headed next, just knew it was time.

Moving from Birch Bay to eventually Spokane meant major change. I've learned a lot about myself since then. One of the unfortunate trade-offs was no more stupendously glorious sunsets over the bay. The photo I've uploaded today was chosen only because of the same date as today.  I could publish a book with the incredible sunsets I was blessed to see in Birch Bay.

So, I hope you don't mind my travel back through time and substituting a photo I had taken then for today's challenge. A wonderfully unanticipated benefit has been to be reminded that change can be good. Attitude makes or breaks a situation, so why not embrace a positive attitude?

December 6, 2010 Birch Bay WA Sunset

Day 11 Something Blue

And so the photography challenge continues. Some subjects have been more challenging than others. Today's left me with so many options it was hard to narrow it to just one. But I did, and I am, right now.

Day 11

Something Blue

30 Day Photography Challenge

(Why do I type this heading every time? Silly, no? It just seems more official, 

although there's nothing official about this challenge. It's just a personal pursuit. C'est la vie)

Thrift Shop Blue Jeans

Post Note: After I posted this I realized I had more to comment about it. 

As a woman of a certain generation in a western society, when one says "something blue" I immediately connect with the something borrowed, something blue of weddings. I'm not real big on weddings, although I've had two of them. But it was just so drummed into my skull that the simple words themselves evoke images of weddings and the importance of having something blue. I pooh-poohed that notion when I learned of today's challenge subject, but I would be less than honest if I didn't at least acknowledge it. This challenge is about images, and for the most part the images are from my day-to-day existence. Images, imagined and tangible are important. It's a form of shared communication. Okay. I'm done. Seriously.

Day 10 of the 30 Day Photography Challenge

Today's photography subject matter has to do with childhood memories. I have a lot of great memories. But I've photographed just one today.

My mother was very artsy-crafty and was always working on home projects with us kids, there were five of us in the Hinsvark family. Especially at Christmas we would sit around the dining table making ornaments and decorations out of whatever Mom could get her hands on for free. We lived on very frugal means, and that meant finding ways to be creative without too much expense. She would collect used Christmas cards, wrapping paper, outdated wallpaper sample books--anything and everything--and we'd have a blast with poster paints, papier mache, flour paste and lots of glitter.

I immediately thought about the fun we had cutting lengths of paper and gluing them together into links for paper chain garlands. We were boisterous, all actively grabbing for glitter or what not, singing Christmas songs. It is a good memory.

Once the decision of subject was made, I also decided to use an outdated calendar of ancient Japanese woodblock scenes for the strips. I spent four years of my childhood in Tokyo, Japan and I'm still very much attracted to Japanese art, textiles, decorative aesthetic. I cut strips from the calendar and linked them together. There are bits of Japanese landscapes, snow scenes, and/or calligraphy on each of the links.

As a result of talking with my sister, Mel about the subject of today's photo, we're going to continue making the links and use the paper garland in the living room. We've both been a bit "Bah! Humbug!" and perhaps this will ease us into a more festive frame of mind.

Day 10

Childhood Memory

30 Day Photography Challenge

Day 9 ... oh yes it is!

Today is Day 9 of the 30-Day Photography Challenge, the subject of which is Someone You Love. My sister, Mel, was babysitting her granddaughter Susan and I couldn't resist photographing them together. Lighting is terrible, focus is abysmal, but the someone loving someone is unmistakable.

Day 9

Someone You Love

30 Day Photography Challenge

Painting Activity, Too

As for other artistic activity going on, I provided about a dozen acrylic paintings to Park Place Apartments, an independent living community in Spokane, WA, for display during December. I think there are two other River Ridge Association of Fine Art members who are also in this exhibit. I am a standby alternate, so unfortunately, I just rushed everything over and don't know too much about the venue or the other artists.

The administrative staff take it upon themselves to install exhibits in their venue, so I plan to go over in a week or so to see how it all looks. Exciting!

This is one of the paintings I prepared that morning to take over. It's an acrylic on 9" x 11" canvas board, titled "Golden Leaves Red Wind."

Day 8 Routine

Routine ... any routine, my routine? I had to think about this a bit. Because I'm, for all intents and purposes, retired. I don't routinely get up at a specific time each morning. Often when I get up is determined by when I put down my book and turn off the light and go to sleep. If it's a good tale, I might not get to sleep until almost time to get up to go to work, if I were working. So, you can see, I can't use that as a routine. I'm very inconsistent.

Oh! Okay! I have one. I have two.

I routinely remove the stickers/labels from fruit from supermarket fruit and stick it up on the back-splash by the sink. I also stick them to my daily journals, or even include them as part of collaged art correspondence I send. Routinely, the labels end up on the back-splash. Ta-Da! My first photograph.

Another routine I have is to take off my jewelry when I go to bed and toss it slap-dash onto a rattan tray on my nightstand. Eventually it piles up and at some point I transfer the baubles to a jewelry box on my bureau. Ta-Da! My second photograph depicting a routine.

Day 8

Routine

30 Day Photography Challenge

Day 7 Changes to Come

Now that I'm sitting down to write this blog entry I realize I misread today's challenge subject. I thought it was "Change." I should be more careful when taking on a photography assignment.

I didn't photograph something today that would imply changes to come. I was out this evening to pick-up some burgers and French fried onion rings, but my usual foodie haunt was closed. I forgot it was Sunday. I noticed I was low on petrol, so drove to a shopping center to fill 'er up, where the lights of a restaurant caught my eye. I've noticed it before, but hadn't gone in.

My sister Melba likes to go to the same places, places she's familiar with, places she and Steve had gone to before he passed away. I usually defer to her when picking up dinner for the two of us.

Bless you for bearing with me, here is the point. I decided to go in. It was a change from my usual routine. As is said, if you don't change, nothing changes. I took a chance. If Mel didn't care for the cuisine, it was only one meal and she could fix herself a PB&J sandwich.

The name of the joint is Tecate, which I learned is also the name of a town in Northern Mexico about 40 miles from San Diego, CA. The city's claim to fame is Tecate Beer. I'm still trying to find a place for good Mexican food here in Spokane. I think I found one! I ordered the chicken flautas and the steak tacos al cabon. Alas, I did not have a Tecate beer, having some Pyramid ale at home, which I did indeedy have with my Mexican dinner. I think Melba enjoyed this change, too.

I changed my choices. Because of this, I can infer other changes might result. See! I did meet the challenge after all!

I like photographing images with light bouncing all over the place, with neon brights. I wish there had been more people, but I was there a little early for the dinner crowd. I also like the letters, visual lines, contrasts of dark and light, and variety of shapes.

Day 7

Changes to Come

30 Day Photography Challenge

Day 6 Obsession

A strange subject, obsession. It's a very strong word, that of something consuming, excessive, compulsive, bordering on frantic, neurotic. An interesting subject, one that I don't think I gave adequate time to mull over. I consider my obsessions, which I don't really feel I have. Although, I'm sometimes dogged in my pursuit of things. Perhaps an obsession of mine is to gather, to collect things. I gather shells and rocks. It might be called obsession.

I used to collect beads, but that period seems to have passed. When I told my sister about today's challenge topic, she immediately said, "Your vintage things." I had to pooh-pooh that one because I'm not obsessive about vintage things. That's strictly a business in order to make some income. Although the hunt for, or the gathering of vintage things to sell might bump hips with constituting a consuming activity. I gather, collect.

However, my first thought was my love of good coffee, of grinding the beans, smelling the resulting aroma that fills the air, of how that first taste of coffee in the morning sets the stage for a good day.

It's good, I'll go with coffee as fulfilling the challenge of obsession. Of course, I managed to slip a shell into the photograph, as well.

Day 6

Obsession

30 Day Photography Challenge

Day 4 Something Green

It's now the end of November and to my mind's eye there wasn't much that's still green. Although when I let out the dog to do her thing, I noted the grass was still green, the evergreen trees still green, albeit it more drab.

But, once one started specifically looking for "green," there it popped up hither and yon.

My first thought was to photograph a green GO-signal, but no, too easy. I kept my eyes peeled. Oh, there's something interesting, but it was something I normally would have photographed. I looked for something with a little more reach, stretch.

Not feeling well but still wanting to meet the challenge, I had photographed a green something nearby. Three things green nearby, to be more to the point.

30 Day Photography Challenge

Day 4

Something Green

Day 3 Clouds

Now here's a subject that I neverendingly love to photograph. There never ceases to be something about the sky and clouds to capture, whether stunning and awesome or gentle and dreamy.

Today's clouds over Spokane were few and more of the gentle variety, where they could be seen above the slight autumn haze. I took a couple of different ones and, as it often the case, I simply cannot decide which ONE to use for the challenge. There don't seem to be any attendant rules, nothing that stipulates I cannot use multiple shots. So, that is what I choose to do.

In the first photograph you can just barely make out a slight parhelion in the clouds toward the bottom of the sky. Perhaps with a better camera it might be more distinct.

For the first two photographs, I had to drive to a place where I could find unobstructed sky. It wasn't that far away, just a few blocks. The last photograph shows what I see when I step outside the house; electrical and utility wires everywhere, and generally a jet trail or three.

Day 3
Clouds

What the ... ANOTHER Challenge? Day 1

Yea verily, another challenge.

A Redlands, CA artist friend of mine, Lori Sandstedt, posted to her Facebook page that she was going to participate in a 30 Day Photography Challenge she came across on Pinterest. You can read the blog progress of that challenge at www.littlebennet.com. Lori, on the other hand, three days ahead of me, is posting her daily results on Facebook.

I was looking for another something to write about, and thought this challenge seemed, well, challenging. I've never worked within a framework of a specific subject each day. It should be fun.

Here's the format I lifted from Pinterest. Sorry about the quality, or lack thereof.

Day 1 Self Portrait

I must make mention that I'll do just about anything to keep from having my photograph taken. The camera is not my friend, I am not photogenic. BUT, in the spirit of the challenge, I'll do it.

It wouldn't be a challenge if it weren't challenging, so it's fitting that I'm being pushed to photograph subjects--people-- I wouldn't otherwise be drawn to photograph.

I admire photographers who work with images of people. I own several amazing photographs of people taken by other photographers, because I love the story conveying aspect. I enjoy looking at the person or people, they're in a setting, they're doing something. But I'm daunted by the act of me photographing people. Could it be because I'm too self-conscious, concerned about their approval?

I remember once being asked as a favor to photograph a friend for an artist bio she had to put together. I drove her completely bonkers with my slow, cautious endeavor to provide her with a photo. She ended up not using it--thank goodness--because it was too real, not at all flattering. I didn't use complimentary lighting to advantage, I didn't have the right composition, wrong, wrong, wrong. It was a mess.

So, perhaps I should to take more shots of people. I'll have to give this more thought. I will say I took the above self-portrait about 20 different times with my iPhone, rejecting all but this one. I found something disturbing about all of them, but this one I can sort of live with.

That's a point I'll make, too. All of the photographs I'm using for this 30 Day Photograph Challenge will be through my phone camera.