52 Week Project: Week 40

Whoa... 3 months left in the year? My how time flies.

It has been a work-consumed week so all of my pictures this week were taken one morning. I took several gems and it was a hard time deciding. Ultimately, this door won out. I've only been promising myself I'd take a picture of this eye catching door on a now defunct building for ages now.



Here are the runners up:

     

Photo Project 2011

After the success of my 365 project, I've decided to tackle another one. I've spent the last few hours, and really, the last year, thinking of ideas for another photography project. I've considered ones with specific topics or specific time frames. Sadly, I also have to take into consideration my job. My job can be very intense and time consuming at times, and other times, I seem to feel like I have all the time in the world. I really wanted to give myself a daily or a weekly assignment, but that would be foolish. I'm also spending a significant portion of time in a very snowy, not-a-lot-of-daylight area which may or may not limit my phototaking opportunities.

Instead, I scoured a few photography websites for some photo ideas and challenges and have come up with a list of 183. Significantly more than I was expecting (I was originally aiming for 52) but not quite 365. It turns out that if you double 183, you come out 366. So, basically, I need to hit each topic twice, if not more to satisfy my 365 project.

It's a pretty broad topic, and this time, I'm not tying myself to a picture a day. This will give me greater flexibility to work around my job and my free time availability. I'd like to be able to aim for a picture a day but I won't be disappointed if I don't.

This project is about letting me flex my creativity with specific goals and seeing the world through different photographic eyes.

Here's my list for those who wish to 'play along':



Here's the official rules:
- Items must be taken between Jan 1, 2011 and Dec 31, 2011
- Each item on the list must be taken twice (or represented twice in the project folder)
- Photos may not count for more than one category [there will be 366 photos in the folder]
- The concept is that many photos must/can be taken for each subject but the best two make it into the 'finals'

Wish me luck!

p.s. Also, the previous 365 project limited me to my DSLR. Not this time, pictures can be taken with either the Digital Rebel XSi or the G12. Either one allows me to play around with controls and gets me to know more about my cameras - another benefit in this photographic exercise.

Task #14 - Complete

14. Take a picture every day for a year.

What a year it's been. I'm using blurb.com and making a photo book of it - and it is going to be amazing.

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365/365



My what a year it's been. It is amazing where I (and subsequently this camera) have been in 365 days.

364/365



A lovely sunset after a rainy day in Forest Park.

363/365



Clematis, up close and beautiful at the Missouri Botanical Garden.


362/365



Exploring Forest Park - this is the rear 'lobby' of the Muny in Forest Park.


361/365



Our garden at my parent's house. Flourishing away from our TLC.

360/365



Not every day can be a great picture - today was a day of mundane tasks including laundry.

359/365



Black and white cupcakes made for Mother's Day.

358/365

I don't go into downtown St. Louis much, but for meetups with meetup.com, I have twice now. I went to Kiener Plaza for a meetup that got cancelled last minute. However, I did get to enjoy the absoulute MASSES of kids dressed up for prom, and more than a few wedding parties.

My only big beef was with the photographers who kept ignoring traffic laws/traffic lights in order to get the right picture in front of Busch Stadium. If you're going to stand in the street, fine, but then have someone watch the traffic light. Grrrr....

357/365

One of things I love about the Missouri Botanical Garden is the subgarden sections they have. There's a daylily garden that come June is bursting to the max with daylilies. But they also have an equally amazing iris garden, and that one blooms in May. Two years ago, I drove back to STL with a good friend of mine, WS, and we went to the Botanical Garden with my parents because she's almost as nuts about photography as I am. We were almost bowled over by that iris garden and spent ages snapping photos. I knew that I wanted to go see it again, so when MBG emailed me about it, I went almost immediately. It was SO worth it. I had almost 1000 pictures from that day, and a majority of them were from the iris garden. So many to choose from but this one was the clear winner - red irises seem to be very rare.

356/365

Meet Manny, the pug puppy who was temporarily my neighbor for a few days. He really was too cute for words and very cuddly. I got many a good picture of this little one. He's 8 months old and will keep his family on their toes.

(Sorry, Pippin)

355/365

Tommy doesn't have to try very hard to be cute, but there are a few things he does that just make me melt. And one of them is this: lying down with his head on his paws. He doesn't do it very often, preferring to lie on his side or on his back. But when he does, he's just too amazingly cute and I have to haul out the camera.

My little pensive puppy, who will be 10 soon. My how time flies...

354/365

I dogsat for my parents recently, and I absolutely enjoy the time I get to spend with my pups. This last time had a double bonus: also adore my neighbor dog, Cody, and Cody had two friends visiting at the time. His buddies were two pugs named Harry Potter (the older one) and Mannfred (the 8 month old puppy).

So out came the camera, and the dogs obligingly posed. This is Cody, and he's absolutely adorable, isn't he? Don't let this serious expression fool you, he's a happy pup!

353/365

I do enjoy sunsets, and I like taking pictures of them in unexpected places, like this. Along Olive Blvd. Look at how it paints the fences along the cemetery, and highlights the power or telephone lines. This was totally taken from a Walgreens parking lot during an errand run.

352/365

The St Louis Metro Area encompasses a pretty large amount of land. I tend to forget that until the opportunity to go far out of my normal sphere of travel arrives.

I belong to a group called freecycle, which promotes swapping items for no cost, versus letting them end up in landfills. Sometimes the stuff is junk and only worth parts, but more often than not, the items are good quality or even almost new. on Day 352, a HP scanner came up on the list. Long time readers will remember that one of the tech items I've long drooled over for was a scanner. This one appeared to be compatible with Mac, and I immediately wrote back, asking if it was still available.

It was. Except this guy was all the way in Mehlville, down by Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, our local military cemetery like Arlington. It took this freecycle opportunity to pay a visit to this famous and well-known cemetery. It was a brief but amazing visit. There were perfectly aligned white headstones, marking the burial places of veterans and spouses from many many years, covering an amazing amount of land. It was both awe-inducing and tragic.

I'm glad for the opportunity to go there and pay some respects.

351/365

I'm really not very much of a girly girl. When I was younger, I loved wearing dresses. As a grown-up, I like wearing them on special occasions. I'm also not one for manicures and the like.

However, I've worn nail polish from time to time. I generally don't like wearing it as it requires upkeep, and tends to flake off easily in my line of work. However, I'm trying to get myself used to having longer nails. I'm so used to cutting them from my piano playing days that I've got to relearn how to have slightly longer nails.

But no matter what, I've always liked sparkly things, especially holographic sparkles. I bought a few new colors to play around with at Walgreens recently.

Boring story, but sparkly picture.

350/365

My roommate and I are definite sushi fans. So when she was on vacation, she found sushi-making supplies for a steal of a deal. So last Friday, Day 350, we made our own sushi. This required a trip to our local Chinatown, which just happens to be in University City. We went through several stores, including one at where the cashier spoke NO English to me. Thank goodness I could read the total amount. It was pretty funny.

We bought ourselves ginger (which we go through in copious amounts), the seaweed wrapper and the proper rice, and sushi vinegar.

Since neither of us wanted to gamble with raw fish, we decided to make vegetarian (and shrimp) sushi. Here are our first rolls. No they're not perfect but boy were they tasty! They certainly will not be the last sushi we make... it was SO much fun. It is a messy task though.

349/365

The joys of a quiet day/night at home... is cooking something that takes a little longer than boiling water for pasta. This recipe I found using my recipe spinner app on my iPhone. No kidding. Gotta love technology.

348/365

I was over at my parent's house... literally a brief visit, which turned into lunch and a visit - and Pip was being super cute and cuddly. Except this girl moves really fast for the camera - so it took practically a million shots to get a good one of this pup. She's on my lap and there's a bunch of shots where she 'rushes' the camera.

347/365

I love going to the Butterfly House even if it is far away and humid-as-all-that inside. And it steams up all of my equipment so that I had to sit there for a half-hour before doing anything... but it was totally worth it. There are butterflies EVERYWHERE and these blue morphos are SO hard to catch on 'film'. They fly around like crazy and rarely stop. Much less with their wings open. I must've taken 1000 photos and kept less than a 100.

346/365

Not all my days are interesting... today's photo comes from doing the dishes. Gotta love bubbles. All I had done was put water and soap into the dish and turned it on full force. The result was a plethora of bubbles that were different sizes. And this is what happens when they're backlit and you have a bored photographer.

Sometimes a study in textures is fun.

345/365

Day 345 was the day that I partcipated in a really cool Meetup.com meetup. The meetup was a scavenger hunt, with the theme of Decay, Isolation, Creepy and Weird. We had to find the 25 objects on the list within about 6 hours.

As a photographer, I love urban decay. I love it because a rundown building has stories. It has history.

I joined the group with the ringleader of this meetup and we went to some really cool places. Places I'd never go by myself. Ever.

What an absolutely fun day, I couldn't stop smiling for awhile. Check out my flickr photostream for more pictures...

344/365

Dining in my house is very informal, except when you are having the parents over. It was a spur of the moment idea, but it was great fun. I cooked an old standby that I've updated to make it slightly healthier (ground turkey instead of hamburger). A good dinner and a movie (The Soloist), and good times were had by all.

343/365

Day 343 was the start of a project long promised, and the deadline is fast approaching. This one is pretty neat for multiple reasons, one of which is because it is a pattern only. No kit. I get to decide the colors (since I seem unable to stick to the original) and the fabric.

It's going to be pretty. Unlikely that I finish it during the 365 project, and even if I do, it can't be revealed. But I'll post a picture eventually.

342/365

You know, when I'm all said and done with this project, I'm curious to see how many pictures of sushi end up in the project, and specifically, how many from this particular place.

A) sushi is by nature a really pretty food to take pictures of. It's an art form itself, but also a tasty treat - and for me and my roommate, a roomie tradition when I get back in town from a job or significant time away.

But also, when I'm back in town, I'm doing the mundane stuff on my at-home to-do list which quite often isn't that exciting and photographable. So the most interesting part of my day turns out to be dinner out, and more often than not, its sushi at our regular place.