During the July break I took the challenge of taking A PHOTO A DAY. I was very excited because I got to follow my passion during my vacations but also try to expand my knowledge and take more risks in photography.
July 1st was the most exciting day for me. I was walking to my grandparents house that morning and I was passing through a park and I suddenly find a dead butterfly at the sidewalk. I loved it. The color of the butterfly was very pretty and like never, it was an easier-if not possible- way to photograph a butterfly. I started taking a lot of pictures and while I was snapping the pictures, I was already thinking on a name for it.
Having this challenge I realized that it didn't just help me grow as a photographer but also helped me be more creative with how I name my photos. I always had trouble with this, even when I tweeted something most of the times I never knew what to say.
I have to be honest; I was very excited and motivated at the beginning of the month. When I went on vacations to Mexico City I was photographing everything that I saw and I liked. I even tried to play with things I saw inside the house that I thought were cool. However, when I went back to Lima this slacked off a little bit. I wasn't taking the time to observe what was around me and take photos of something interesting that I saw or practice a new technique which was the whole point of doing this 30 DAY CHALLENGE.
When I did my Personal Project on photography I suscribed to various photography websites and I always got new tips of techniques I could use even for photos with my iPhone. At the beginning of the month I spend some time reading a lot of these articles which I shared some with Andrea who also took photography as her habit. Now that I took the time to reflect back on what I did last month I wish I had applied more of these things that I learned on those articles.
July 1st was the most exciting day for me. I was walking to my grandparents house that morning and I was passing through a park and I suddenly find a dead butterfly at the sidewalk. I loved it. The color of the butterfly was very pretty and like never, it was an easier-if not possible- way to photograph a butterfly. I started taking a lot of pictures and while I was snapping the pictures, I was already thinking on a name for it.
Having this challenge I realized that it didn't just help me grow as a photographer but also helped me be more creative with how I name my photos. I always had trouble with this, even when I tweeted something most of the times I never knew what to say.
I have to be honest; I was very excited and motivated at the beginning of the month. When I went on vacations to Mexico City I was photographing everything that I saw and I liked. I even tried to play with things I saw inside the house that I thought were cool. However, when I went back to Lima this slacked off a little bit. I wasn't taking the time to observe what was around me and take photos of something interesting that I saw or practice a new technique which was the whole point of doing this 30 DAY CHALLENGE.
When I did my Personal Project on photography I suscribed to various photography websites and I always got new tips of techniques I could use even for photos with my iPhone. At the beginning of the month I spend some time reading a lot of these articles which I shared some with Andrea who also took photography as her habit. Now that I took the time to reflect back on what I did last month I wish I had applied more of these things that I learned on those articles.
Reaching the end of the month I was really sick and had to stay at home for an entire week. After two days of spending the whole day in my bed I got extremely board. I have learned from this that sometimes the moments when you are bored-with nothing to do- can be the most creative moments. I also had a lot of homework to finish before our first day of school; after a while of working on my homework I was already tired and I suddenly had an awesome idea.
For some time now I have really liked studio photography, especially when we had to photograph objects. I discovered this when I worked with Barreto on some dessert photos for a bakery here in Lima. I had some chocolate Kisses on my desk and for practice I created my own mini studio at home using a white box for the background and printer paper as well. It was really fun and I got to use my macro lens which I mentioned in an early blog post that I wanted to begin to use more frequently. So I did.
For some time now I have really liked studio photography, especially when we had to photograph objects. I discovered this when I worked with Barreto on some dessert photos for a bakery here in Lima. I had some chocolate Kisses on my desk and for practice I created my own mini studio at home using a white box for the background and printer paper as well. It was really fun and I got to use my macro lens which I mentioned in an early blog post that I wanted to begin to use more frequently. So I did.
It has a lot of details painted on it which I liked and I wanted to create a shadow on one part to make it more scary as skulls tend to be sometimes. I didn't have an external flash which limited the quality of the photo so I used a lamp with white light from my room and it worked pretty well. | I used a 50mm lens to take these photos. The uniqueness of this lens is that it has no zoom and what makes it fun is having to focus it manually and choose what you wanted to be the main focus of the photo. |
For these pictures, I used two different kinds of Kisses and I wanted to make them very editorial and simple. I tried playing with the shadows because I wasn't sure if I wanted them at the beginning or not but it was hard not to have it. However, I also experienced working with other tools in Lightroom and learned a lot through that process since I hadn't seen any tutorials or taken classes for it. |
Overall, I think this was a good experience for me and when I got a shot of something I liked I was really excited. Especially for the last pictures that I ideated on my own and tried to be more creative when trying to apply home tools for a photo studio was fun and interesting as well.