Quote of the day: “PHOSPHORESCENCE. Now there’s a word to lift your hat to… to find that phosphorescence, that light within, that’s the genius behind poetry.” ― Emily Dickinson

Fairy figure in aloe plant

Lit From Within

It is day 7 of my 40 day photography challenge (see THIS POST for details). And each day I feel as if I’m having more fun. I can’t wait to pick up my camera and work.

My Dining Room Phography Studio

This morning I started making photographs while still in my nightgown! I set my breakfast on the dining room table and then, because the dining room is my primary photography studio, noticed something on the flowers I was photographing yesterday that captivated me. Breakfast was forgotten as I made a series of shots.

I feel like I’m lit from a fire within! The days are too short. Even though I’ve committed to only 25 photos per day, my average number of photos per day has been more than 100.

Doing the Work Brings the Inspiration

Even if I don’t have any great ideas about what I want to photograph, once I start working, ideas come. The other day, I decided to try a few macro shots of seashells.

After making a lot of mediocre seashell photos, I remembered a small fairy figure (that’s destined for a fairy garden for my grandkids) one of my students gave me at the end of the last class I taught.

Fairy Figure on Seashell

I decided to play around with it and the seashells. While I was photographing, I glanced to my right and noticed my aloe plant and thought, “Why don’t I try placing the fairy figure in the plant and photographing it?”

It Turned Out to Be My Favorite Subject of the Day!

The wild phlox that I so enjoyed photographing last week have almost all wilted, but the stems of the flowers in one of my vases caught my eye. There was one tiny perfect leaf against the delicate stems.

I decided to photograph the vase sans flowers, just the stems in the water with the one tiny leaf.

One Tiny Leaf

Again my favorite shot of the day!

I would never have planned that photograph. It took looking at the subject matter again and again in different light and settings to see the beauty of it.

Doing the Work Makes Me Want to Learn More!

I just read Tony Sweet’s book, Fine Art Flower Photography over the weekend. He is one of my favorite flower photographers. I’ve been trying some of his techniques to achieve artistic blur in flower photographs. So far, none of my efforts have turned out well enough to use, but I keep trying.

Show up. Work hard. Learn. Improve. — Corbett Barr

While I was looking for a quote for today’s post, I found this short blog post: Show up. Work Hard. Learn. Improve.

That’s what my 40 day challenge is teaching me. “Show up. Work hard. Learn. Improve.” I couldn’t have said it better.