Finding a Good Photography Project

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

There are loads of good photography projects around. There are a couple of regular ones on blogs that I follow that I like to take part in, like at Neil Creek’s blog. But he hasn’t got one on this month so I’m looking for something new to try.

I also take part in some Flickr group projects that I’ve joined recently which are normally weekly, and then there’s always my Project 365, so doing something else as well could be too much.

But I’ve just come across a new site called Photo Challenge which runs monthly projects (every other month). In July the project is Lighting Fixtures, shooting one daily throughout the month and submitting it to the group. I love lights and lighting so this one definitely appealed to me, and although I found it a little late I’m going to give it go.

Mandy

Did you like this article? Then please subscribe to my RSS Feed!

Iron Chef Photography: Shoe Project

Do you enter Photography Projects?

There are lots of photography projects around to participate in covering just about everything. So far I’ve only submitted to one project back in March but I want to do more, I think they are a great way to learn and challenge myself. So I’ve entered another one…

Above is my entry for Neil Creek’s Iron Chef Photography: Shoe Project that he runs on his blog. Submissions have now closed for this one, but that means the voting is about to start (and will end on 29th June).

The aim of the project besides taking photographs of shoes was to tell a story with the photograph. And that is what I have tried to do. I did actually climb the hill, and then took my shoes off to take the photograph of them!

It was very simple to enter the project, I just had to upload the image to my flickr account and then enter the address on the form. But it could have been on my blog or on any other photo management site as well.

There’s a public vote for entries as well as the judges vote so you may like to drop by and take a look?

Mandy

Did you like this article? Then please subscribe to my RSS Feed!

Church Project: St Hilary’s Wallasey

This is my second Church Project and this week it’s St Hilary’s in Wallasey which is the oldest church in Wallasey, there’s been six different church buildings and there has been a church on this site since around 900AD. When it’s said the Vikings named the area Walea, ‘the village with the church on the island of the foreigners’.

Above is a panoramic view from the steps of St Hilary’s and my first attempt at producing a panoramic photograph. It’s not a great example, but not bad for a first attempt!

This one is the sixth building built around 1860. There’s also a separate tower from an earlier church building that burnt down. The tower dates from medieval times.

As you can see this site has a wealth of local history attached to it which is very interesting, and that appeals to me.

Mandy

Did you like this article? Then please subscribe to my RSS Feed!

Church Project

I want to do a bit more with projects because I’m enjoying my Project 365 so much. So I thought it would be interesting to concentrate on one type of subject, like Churches for instance. It will be good to explore a subject in more detail, and good practice. I chose Churches because I like architecture, and Churches are amazing examples of this.

These shots are of Birkenhead Priory the first Church that I wanted to shoot, mainly because it’s the oldest standing building on the Wirral (the first photograph) so I thought it was a good place to start.

The tall tower is St Mary’s Tower which was part of a later church that was built next to the old Priory.

Birkenhead Priory was also the first place where a ferry crossed the River Mersey, operated by the monks of the Priory.

You may think it a bit strange to see a ship in these photographs seeing as I’m looking at Churches, but it is the view from the top of St Mary’s Tower, looking over into Cammell Larids dock yard. The dock yard is literally feet away from the priory, it’s amazing what you can find right next to Churches!

Trying out the gallery feature!

Mandy

Did you like this post? Then please subscribe to my RSS Feed!

How’s my P365 going?

Sunset from my window.

It’s been a while since I mentioned my Project 365 a photo a day for a year. It’s starting to build up nicely now I’m well into my third month. I can’t believe how fast that has gone. So here are some of my favourites for April. I can start to see the year panning out through photographs which is interesting, I can imagine it will be great to look back on in the future.

my son’s new light.

But April was a hard month to do, I had trouble thinking of what to shoot everyday but I expected that it wasn’t all going to be plain sailing.

build your own computer.

Mandy

Did you like this article? Then please subscribe to my RSS Feed!

My First Month of Project 365!

Well I have finished the first month of my Project 365, the first milestone. I’ve uploaded all my photos to my Flickr account, except two which I took on my mobile phone, I’m still looking for the lead to upload them to my computer!

I’m not doing a specific project 365, like a self portrait one. I’m more documenting my year where possible and the things around me. Which is really interesting. Some days are harder than others when thinking of something to shoot, but it’s challenging and making me look for photo opportunities everywhere.

So much for this photo a day thing, I never realised that to get that one photo I was going to have to take so many! But because I am taking so many photos I feel I am starting to improve and I’m learning a lot, as well as getting better at spotting photo opportunities.

I’m really enjoying it, and just looking back at last month is rewarding and gets me excited for this month.

Here are three of my favourites from this month, if you would like to see more then take a look at my Flickr account.

Mandy

Did you like this article? Then please subscribe to my RSS Feed!

Image of the Week #12

This week in image of the week:

With it being my first week of taking part in Project 365, a photo a day for a year. I thought I would use one of the photographs I took this week.

This is a sculpture of a clown at the entrance of New Brighton, which back in victorian times was as big a seaside resort as Blackpool, it even had a taller tower. But it went into decline and lost a lot of it’s attractions, until recently when there has been some new investment to help the town regain it’s former glory. The clown sculpture at the entrance to New Brighton was one of these additions and caused a lot of controversy when it was made and put up.

I managed to dodge the traffic and get onto the roundabout on which it stands for a nice close up. Although the sun caused some problems reflecting off the metal (which was part of it’s design).

Mandy

Did you like this article? Then please subscribe to my RSS Feed!

My Project 365 is Live

This is my first photograph for my Project 365. Which was taken on a trip to the park on Saturday, and is off a Canadian goose who was looking a little sad and dejected in the cold and wind.

Starting the Project 

I started my Project 365 on 1st March 2008 and have been taking a photo a day ever since (a whole 4 days - so far so good). So only 361 days to go!

I’m not too worried about thinking of photos to take, not at the moment anyway I’m only 4 days in and still confident. I think I’m more worried about forgetting to take one.

I am going to keep notes on what I take each day, like a mini diary so I don’t duplicate anything. And also it will compliment the photos nicely as a document for the year.

Sharing the photos 

I talked the other day about Flickr and possibly uploading the photos to an account there to share them. Well I have set up a Flickr account and uploaded the first photograph. There are loads of different features that I am starting to get to grips with, and being a Flickr newbie I will share them here as I go along. I will probably upload the photos in weekly batch’s at first to see how that goes rather than daily. And I will post once a month here to share how it is going.

A little inspiration 

For a bit of inspiration here are some other photographers that have taken the Project 365 challenge on:

Sandy 365
Carol365
Nicole365

I am looking forward to this project and committing to it for a year, and also looking forward to seeing how I have changed by the end of it!

Mandy

Did you like this article? Then please subscribe to my RSS Feed!

Do You Have a Flickr Account?

I have to admit I didn’t know anything about Flickr until very recently. The first thing I learned was that it is part of the Yahoo Group, and I learned that when I heard about Microsoft putting a bid in for Yahoo.

So why am I interested now?

Well it’s not because Microsoft may be taking over. I am going to be starting my own photography Project 365 and I was trying to decide how to share the photos. This blog is all about my journey as a photographer so the fact that I wanted to share them wasn’t even a question, but where is the best place?

I did think about sharing them on the blog as that was the obvious place, but Project 365 is about taking a photo a day for a year, so that’s a lot of photos. So just adding the photos in between the other posts seemed messy, I felt that the project is big enough to need some separate attention.

But at the moment this blog is still new, building and finding it’s feet, so I don’t feel it’s right to start another blog or photoblog in case it took me away from here.

So I started to look at photo management sites. And the most popular one that you always hear about and everybody seems to be part of is Flickr. Now I don’t know why I have never considered using a photo management site before, I suppose I just haven’t felt the need. But it makes a lot of sense now, I can upload and share my Project 365 photos and link to them from this blog. I will also be doing monthly updates here about how I am finding the project, so joining a photo management site seems a much better solution.

Flickr

As I said earlier Flickr is owned by Yahoo which means you can use your Yahoo ID (if you have one) when you sign up. They say it’s most likely the best photo management system on the internet with millions of users and all types of photographers. I’m most interested in the creative commons feature which gives you flexible control over your images and who is allowed to use them. I am looking forward to trying out Flickr to see what it is like.

Flickr’s two main goals are:

1. To help people make their photos available to the people who matter to them.
2. Enable new ways to organize photos.

So in a week I have gone from knowing nothing and not being interested in Flickr, to starting my own account and looking to join a Flickr group to do with Project 365, to meet other photographers doing the same thing. A pretty sharp turn around!

Mandy

Did you like this article? Then please subscribe to my RSS Feed!

Project 365

Could you take a photo a day for a whole year?

I have recently read on Photojojo about this Project 365 - take a photo a day for a year. It was originally started by Taylor McKnight back in 2004 and he has recently done it for a second time. Photojojo are encouraging everyone to have a go and see how it changes you as a person and as a photographer.

It sounds really interesting, the thought of taking a photo a day for a year is a big commitment, and a bit of a challenge to think of something to take every day. But I imagine it would be very interesting, and at the end of the year I would have a huge album of photographs to look back at.

And taking a photo a day for a year can only improve my photography skills surely, or else completely put me off photography for life! Either way it will be fun finding out.

I am definitely going to do it and I am looking forward to the challenge. I haven’t decided yet whether to post the photos here or to use Flickr and share them there (I don’t know anything about Flickr - yet), but I will be waiting until the beginning of next month to start the project just to keep things nice and tidy, and give myself time to prepare!

Why don’t you too take up the challenge and start your own project…

Mandy

Did you like this article? Then please subscribe to my RSS Feed!