365

Lengthy post warning. Feel free to scroll down to "TL;DR" if you are not my mom and therefore probably not interested in anything other than pictures.

The first time I remember being interested in photography was Christmas morning when I was somewhere in the eight to ten year old range. Santa had brought me my first point and shoot camera and some rolls of film. I loved taking pictures, but of course I couldn’t just snap away all the time since each roll was limited to something like 26 photos. A summer or two later, my parents let me take a photography course for kids. After that, I felt like I had become quite the photographer.

I joined the yearbook staff my sophomore year of high school, and was an editor my junior and senior years. While at the time I was much more interested in writing and graphic design (I’ve experimented with quite a lot of creative fields), it was sometimes necessary for me to borrow one of the school’s Nikon D40s and snap some pictures of a club meeting or pep rally. Our yearbook advisor, Mrs. Watson (who is actually the woman who inspired me to learn how to knit and turned me into the crazy yarn lady I am today), taught us some basics in photo composition and photo processing in Photoshop. Being an editor my last two years also gave me the opportunity to take a few photography/Photoshop workshops at yearbook conventions (yes, that’s a thing).

Post-graduation I didn’t play with photography again until the last month of my college career. I won a scholarship for graduating fiber arts students by writing about Gynx Yarns and how I hoped to grow it after receiving my degree. That scholarship gave me the money to buy my first DSLR, a Nikon D3000. At the time, the D3200 was already on the market, but I was looking to stretch my scholarship money to invest in a few business things. At the time I had been taking photos of my yarn with my phone, so it was a huge upgrade.

Over the past few years post-college, I’ve played with photography here and there. 95% of my photos are yarn product photos, but on occasion I’ve taken photos of my cats, vacations, etc. This past summer I upgraded my camera body to a Nikon D5300 that I am in love with, and acquired a few lenses along the way. I have been feeling the itch to play around with my camera more as I prep for the vacation of a lifetime next year. It’s the kind of trip that has to be documented, and documented well. I feel like my photography is pretty lacking at the moment, and I want to improve.

That’s where the 365 Project comes in. For those not familiar, the premise is simple: take a photo every day. You can follow various photo challenges online for prompts, or you can do your own thing. While I plan to take on the challenge for all of 2015, I’ve already started. What can I say? I’m inspired, and if I don’t act on it, I’ll lose momentum. And besides, this time of year is so fun to document. So for me, I guess it’s a 378 challenge. I might resort to using my iPhone from time to time, but the goal is really to pick up the DSLR and shoot.

That brings me to this neglected blog. For the past 2+ years, it’s essentially only been my podcast videos. I now plan to post each Sunday (or maybe every other Sunday if it gets overwhelming) and show a photo for each day. Today I have this past Wednesday through Saturday in photos. I hope you will enjoy watching my photos improve. My good friend Maria said that she might be joining me in the challenge in 2015, so check out her blog too if you haven't already.

TL;DR: I'm going to take a photo every day in 2015, but I've gone ahead and started a bit early. Check in weekly/biweekly for the photos I've taken.

December 17, 2014. Nikon D5300. 50mm lens. f/1.8, shutter speed 1/50, ISO 2000

This was an experiment using this technique to get little heart-shaped lights in the background. I didn't do it quite right, so I'd like to play with this again.

December 18, 2014. Nikon D5300. 50mm lens. f/1.8, shutter speed 1/160, ISO 2000

Pizza is everything.

December 19, 2014. Nikon D5300. 50mm lens. f/1.8, shutter speed 1/160, ISO 2000

Testing out some new fiber in front of the tree.

December 20, 2014. Nikon D5300. 50mm lens. f/1.8, shutter speed 1/320, ISO 500

This one cracks me up. Augustus is such a sweet kitty to me, but he and Othello don't like me taking tons of photos of them. I really need to get a lens that I can use farther away from them so they don't hate me so much. Here he ran away from me and hid behind... that big box thing in the backyard that makes lots of noise? What's that called? I don't know. Anyway, doesn't he look like an angry street cat? Yeah, he's totally a spoiled inside kitty.