The Beginning

At first glance, the Genius Project seemed a bit intimidating. Never once have I had such an open-ended project with literally endless choices. And to me, it was a bit overwhelming because I personally am most comfortable with a little more structure. But the more I thought about this project, the more I realized that there were literally endless choices. Meaning, I could choose anything at all and just learn about it. And have a lot of fun doing so.


The first thought I had was art. Art is something I really love, but have never really had the time to pursue. I did dabble a bit in oil painting, pastel and sketch when I was younger, and really enjoyed all those mediums. But I wanted to try something completely different. And this is when photography came into mind, because unlike other forms of art, the idea of photography is based on the present moment. It's based upon the real world, and finding beauty rather than creating it. (I also just received a new camera for Christmas, and have been dying to play around with it, which helped make my choice a bit easier). As far as my experience in photography goes, it's pretty much limited to taking family photos and pictures of squirrels, although I have begun picking up some pretty neat tips from National Geographic magazine in their photography section here. National Geographic, by the way, produces some of the most AMAZING photos I've ever seen. I actually just recently began subscribing to the magazine, and the sheer beauty of some of the photos in it is  incredible. Of course, I can't travel to the distant corners of the globe to find inspiration for my pictures, so I plan on wandering around my own community to maybe catch a glimpse of beauty that we see everyday, but never really think of.

                                                               Me and my camera :)

The goal for this project is to make a photo album of 25 pictures. In the six weeks I have left, I will spend five weeks taking photos. This first week I will spend learning how to work my Cannon Rebel T3i, which has an awful lot of buttons and settings. I'm not even sure if I still have the manual lying around in a dusty corner of a drawer somewhere, but thankfully, I also found a really helpful webesite here which describes a lot of the settings so I can adjust to take a photo in the style I want it. As far as the modes go, I will probably be focusing mostly on landscape and close-up, although each theme will introduce different modes. Once I get more used to the camera, I may begin switching to creative mode and adjust all the settings myself. I will be spending the next few days familiarizing myself with my lovely camera, who will be my dearest companion in the weeks to come. Starting next week, I will choose a theme, or something that my pictures for that week will focus around. Potential themes could be things about me, like "fears". I think that the pictures will all be in color, but none will contain any people. I want to focus on environment rather than a person. Week 1 photos will be taken with autoflash, but starting Week 2, I will focus on more complex settings on my camera. By the end of the project, I hope to have a bunch of unique pictures documenting my experience. I really am excited to start taking photos and maybe, just maybe getting that perfect shot! Hopefully, even after this project, photography will become an enjoyable hobby for me.

End Goal:
Photo Album containing...

- 5 photos from Theme 1 (just autoflash photos)
-5 photos from Theme 2 (emphasis on dark and light)
-5 photos from Theme 3 (emphasis on macro/ closeup mode)
-5 photos from Theme 4 (emphasis on action mode)
-5 photos from Theme 5 ( self-adjust all settings)
-Quick description of time and place of each photo

The themes are still being worked out, so stay tuned! Feel free to comment or leave any suggestions!