Self Portrait…well essence of self

I am about as uninteresting as stereotypical people go.

I am a stay at home mum. I have three boys. I spend my days making sure they don’t hurt themselves or each other…Um, that’s it.

You can imagine that although I wouldn’t trade even one second of my time with my kids, after 4 years, I needed something a bit different to prevent my brain from turning completely to mush. When I got my first smart phone I got a hobby. Taking photos.

4 years later the smartphone has changed and alternates with my DSLR. The later is my ultimate challenge. I imagine I will feel frustrated by it and love it dearly for the rest of my life. But although I am isolated, between my children and my photography I will never be bored.

Here is me on any given day.

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Stop taking photos of you taking photos!

Today my family was on another long drive. My husband and I always argue over who gets to do the driving because we both like to drive, it doesn’t matter where we are going. Anyway, today he got to do the driving. So I decided that the best way to spend my time was to take a million photos from the moving vehicle. It can be pretty hard to get a clear focus of the trees whizzing past, but our car and us were consistent so I took a photo of me…again. Another self  portrait! As an aside, I am particularly proud of the pinky flair happening in the photo! Who knew I take photos the same way you might drink a cup of tea? Does make for a pleasing shape though. Let’s pretend I did it on purpose for the composition.

Photographers Everywhere: Strange Question – Did you name your camera?!

I have a habit of naming and assigning personality traits to the most used things in my life. It all started when I got my first car and named it Georg (pronounced GAY-ORG) after Captain VonTrap from The Sound of Music. Over the years I have had other ‘things’ in my life and they have been given names according to the personality traits I think they would have. My GPS is named Ken and I wouldn’t go on any excursions without him, I have my iPhone who fell into being called Old Trusty and now I have a new camera.

Unfortunately the first thing that popped into my head was Mr Fancy Pants and it has stuck! I don’t think Mr Fancy Pants would like it. He is a serious piece of machinery and the other cameras are sure to make fun of him. It is surely akin to dressing your Rotweiler in a pink tutu and taking him for a walk past a dog park. I am hoping that something else will come to me later (not too much later or it will never change!).

I’d really like to know if anyone else out there has a name for their camera? What did you call it and how did it come to you?

You can comment your answer or use the poll, but I am curious. I’d love to hear your answer!

Mr Fancy Pants gets a Workout

I have had a chance to play this afternoon with the new camera and some of the photos turned out OK. After doing my homework this is the first time I have used the camera fully manual and felt like I was controlling it as opposed to being completely out of control. I am happy with that.

Here are the first lot of photos.

This is W. He is watching TV, hence the vacant look on his face. Please excuse the filthy clothing, but he doesn’t generally stay clean for more than about 2 seconds after dressing him. When he wasn’t looking at the TV he kept crawling straight to me and then on me. That made it particularly difficult to photograph him. Cheeky fellow.

That last one was a bit of a disaster. Great face with a distracting background made worse by trying to fix it. Boo.

Gotta love a baby that can put up with his mother following him around photographing him all the time. He just works around me. Beautiful.

I bought my first SLR! Holy crap they cost a lot!!

I have just bought my first SLR and I feel a million things all at once! Panic. What if I am no good at photography and I just spent all that money?! Excitement. The possibilities are endless now. I am no longer hindered by lack of camera ability, just my own failings. That thought makes my heart beat faster in two ways. It’s a challenge and I love that, but what if I’m not up to it? Apprehension. I have heard stories about how complicated the manual settings on an SLR are.

I guess I will just start over. Focus on learning one thing at a time. At worst I will have clear photos of family events. At best I can achieve great photos for the concept I have in my mind.

As I have said before I am really interested in street photography. It looks HARD. I never see anyone, that would make it much harder. But I have a current obsession with jumping. Mainly because old trusty can’t take a photo fast enough, but new shiny, fancy camera certainly better be able to. So I want to combine them. I want to photograph people jumping. Maybe at least sometimes in places they wouldnt naturally jump. As I write this it sounds confused and has the possibility to nose dive. It might. I have an idea in my mind of what I want to see, but no idea how to get it to translate.

So I will set myself an ongoing challenge. I will try to develop a series of photos of jumping. They won’t be everyday, just when I get something that kind of works and hopefully they will evolve and develop. As long as I can look back and see the first one looking much worse than the most recent I will be happy.

Wish me luck! I will need it.