My Happy Place

After carefully studying the owner's manual for my camera, and finally understanding what all the little pictures for the settings mean, I decided that the theme for week 1 would be "My Happy Place". To me, a happy place is anywhere quiet and rather secluded. In order to find some inspiration, day 1  I decided to bike around the community a bit. After taking my dusty bike for a quick loop on the driveway, I realized that the brake was broken. Awesome. Unfortunately, my mom hadn't been too keen on the idea of just "driving around" so that I could find some good landscapes. So brake or no brake, I armed myself with my camera and set off to find some worthy photos that wouldn't completely put me to shame when compared to what others were probably doing this week. Ten seconds after leaving the driveway, I realized just how awkward riding a bike in the middle of winter looked. People driving by gave me some curious glances, and I imagine that to them I was this random girl wearing a giant trench coat on a bright pink bike with a Cannon camera slung over her shoulder. The first stop I wanted to make was to The Creek. Just outside of my neighborhood is the beginning of Stony Creek, which is basically a trickle of water, small enough to not quite hold the majesty of a flowing river, and big enough to never dry into a muddy waterbed during the summer. The Creek is one of those forgotten holy grounds that I pass by everyday without really seeing. After almost crashing into  tree while trying to slow my bike down effectively without the help of an actual brake, I stood on the bridge overlooking the Creek and looked down. Immediately, memories of elementary school summers spent exploring the creek, looking for turtles, and trying to "fish" from the shallow water came into mind.

I spent probably about ten minutes just poking around the creek, sitting on rocks, exploring the stretch of woods nearby, and getting my jeans muddy.After ten minutes of plodding around in mud, I finally emerged victorious, triumphantly holding my camera. (I now have a newly-found respect for professional nature photographers.) Here I wasn't really going for an artsy shot or anything, just displaying the wild natural beauty of the river. Still, the branches in the forefround of the photo kind of bother me. But not too bad for my first photo in a while. The highlight of my first day, though, was this herd of deer that I spotted while riding back. I'm pretty sure that they're the same herd that keeps on visiting my backyard and eating my grandma's vegetables in the spring.

Yeah, that didn't really have anything to do with my theme. But I stalked them through people's backyard's for about another ten minutes and came home pretty proud at my efforts.

I visited my elementary school, Stony Creek, the second day to walk the nature trail. (The bike ride there was terrifying. I definitely need to get my bike fixed for next week.)  This tree, which I found at the start of the trail, really stood out. It was the really giant sycamore. And since I wanted to get a better shot, I decided to climb it. You can't really see from the picture, but there was actually a bunch of picture carvings on the higher branches that people had left behind that I never noticed before. Again, this brought back many happy memories of Elementary School days.

Anyways, I found a dry log by the trail and sat there for a while. Kinda wish I had brought Les Miserables or something to read. Even though it's winter, the monotony of the woods and its shade of the grey-brown makes it seem even more quiet this time of year.

Wednesday I decided to experiment a little with indoor too. Outside was rather cloudy and I had to do a little research about how to shoot better on overcast days, since the lighting is not as good. I read an article about it from here which did help me a lot.  Still, too many cloudy days this week for my liking. I hope the sun comes back out next week! (Actually, it wouldn't really matter because my photos next week will all be in black and white.) I think the best one was taken in my room though. My study desk is actually facing this window, and the view outside is gorgeous. I have probably spend countless evenings with a bunch of textbooks or my laptop just gazing out this window. I like the simplicity of the photo.

Thursday I took this photo during a rare sunny moment. Yep, more trees. Trees are probably one of the most beautiful things in this world. I imagine that my true happy place is probably somewhere in the middle of the woods. I've never taken many nature photos during the winter except after snowfall since there's not really much color, and this has been a very new experience for me. After reviewing the photo though, I think the dark color of the trees and the color of the sky complement each other really well. I'm really excited to continue as the weeks pass and witness the changes in these woods as Spring comes around. Hopefully I might even be able to photograph these changes.

 

 

Today after a long week I sat down with a cup of tea at the kitchen table. Honestly our table is probably ancient, but it's probably my favorite piece of furniture in the whole house. This picture also brings back memories of late night snacks. I think the teacup should have been a bit smaller; it looks rather obnoxiously large in the photo. The glare in the otherwise black background is from one of the chairs. In this photo, I was trying to capture that gentle glow from the hanging light overhead to achieve a tranquil kind of feel. Is it just me or does the shadow below the teacup kind of make look like it's floating?

 

All in all, I'm pretty happy with how my photos turned out this week. This has turned out to be even more exciting than I thought, and I can't wait to continue my adventure and complete my next five themes. Next week's focus is the contrast between light and dark. All pictures will probably be in black and white, which I feel will probably be harder. I will have to read more into the differences between taking color photography and black and white photography. Can't wait to give it a shot! (Sorry, that was a terrible pun.)