Silent Sunday

1-31/365

As a part of the 365 project in the Flickr group I am in we post a mosaic of images at the end of each month. I am really enjoying the challenge.

Februarys set should be interesting… I am in Taizé for one week out of it! I cannot wait!

Happy New Year!

I love New Years Day, especially when I’ve had a lovely quiet evening in the night before, no hangovers and extreme tiredness here!

The day feels fresh, there is anticipation in the air and you can sense the new beginnings that comes with a brand new year. We have just taken down all of our decorations. They are now packed away and stored back up in Robyn’s attic bedroom. The living room feels a bit bare but at the same time it feels brighter. Now comes the task of sorting out all of the toys. We  need to go through them all and decide which ones will go upstairs to the girls rooms, which ones will go to my mum and dads house and which will stay down here. We sorted out the toys that needed throwing away/rehoming just before Katie’s birthday so at least we know one task is done lol.

I’ve just started a 365 project on Flickr. Here is my first shot:

From now on I’ll probably only post my monthly mosaic here but feel free to keep an eye on the project on my Flickr page. You could even join in. The group I am doing it in is one set up for members past & present from my OU course but there are lots of 365 projects on Flickr.
We’ve also started a new savings scheme… £1 a day for 2010. Hopefully we will stick to it and by this time next year we will have £365 to treat ourselves with!

Best of 2009: Web Tool

Maybe not quite a web tool but the thing that has to come under this section is Flickr.

I was introduced to it by a friend and when my OU photography course (T189) started I became hooked. On Flickr I can share photographs of more random things than I do on Facebook. So many people are able to see my photographs. The rush I blogged about earlier on in this challenge becomes even more immense when I get a comment on Flickr. A complete stranger telling me that they like my photograph is amazing for me! In 2010 I am going to start a photo a day challenge set up by a past T189 course member. I hope it keeps my passion for photography alive now that my course has finished.

A web tool that enables my photographs to be seen by more people has to be good! You can see my Flickr photostream here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/meltedmoments/

This post is part of  Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 blog challenge

Best of 2009: Rush

I think there can only be one thing here. My photography.

This year I have discovered a new hobby, something that I enjoy so so much and something that gives pleasure to others. I have discovered that I can get a huge rush by taking photographs, by getting home and editing them and by seeing peoples reactions to them.

At the weekend we went out to Heaton Park with my family. The sunlight was perfect and it was a really crisp winters day. Wonderful! I was totally taken by the beauty of the trees against the winter sky and when I got home I began to edit the photographs I had taken. When I opened one particular photograph to edit I actually said “Wow!!!”. My sister in law asked me what was wrong lol. The rush I got was amazing. A photograph that I had taken was so stunning that it made me gasp! I had to remind myself that it was my photograph and not one from a book.

Yes. Learning photography has definitely given me the rush of 2009!

Here is that photograph:

This post is part of  Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 blog challenge

Best of 2009: Workshop or conference

The only thing that could come under this heading for 2009 is my photography course. I enrolled on it back in early summer to start in October. I became interested in photography and had some encouraging comments from  my friends about my pictures. I realised I was eligible for funding for the Open University digital photography course so nervously applied.

There were people of all abilities on the course. Some were excellent photographers already, some were total beginners and others like me had a basic understanding of what makes a good photograph but needed to learn much much more.

The course challenged me. It made me stop and think about myself, about how I use my camera. I’d only ever used a camera to take pictures of my family. Now I realised I was becoming capable of taking an image that other people could really enjoy. Definitely one of the best things I did in 2009 was deciding to take that course.

This post is part of  Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 blog challenge

Best of 2009: Article

Shorter post this one.

The article that I found this year that has helped me the most is 13 Resources for DSLR Beginners. When I got my Sony a200 in August I was excited but also nervous. This article continues to help me find my way around my camera and to get the most out of it. I have just yesterday completed and submitted a short Open University course on digital photography. Hopefully the article has helped me alongside the course material! I’ll find out how successful I was in the course sometime in February/March when the results are due out!

This post is part of  Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 blog challenge