Week 6: Photography Week

Welcome to Week 6! Hope you are all doing well! Last week ended, and I had a great time getting back into the habit of walking to work, even though I'll admit there were two mornings that I slept in and didn't have time to walk to work. I had a few conversations with people from the community, and I reached out to my one neighbor that lives next to us. I had been trying to see him during the week, but he was never around when I went so I left him a note inviting him for dinner this week. I am hoping that he responds, and I will definitely check back with him. I will keep you all posted! You will be happy to know that I am continuing walking to work this week and hope to continue until the weather gets bad. It was such a refreshing walk to work. It gave me time to mentally prepare for the day ahead and also gave me time with God. I also have a new found appreciation for the the houses in Blue Island. Each house is unique and beautiful in its own way. Also, the diversity in Blue Island is awesome. As a social worker, I gained a love for diverse populations- diverse in color, faith, experiences, ages, etc. This past week showed me that I want to invest even more into the community and the people of Blue Island.

That brings me to Week 6: Photography week with a guest appearance by Rebecca Lewis, my roommate and friend! I have always loved taking photos of the people I love, but I've never really done more than just look through the viewfinder and snap the shot. My roommate has a beautiful Nicon D80 SLR, and any time I've seen her with it, I feel like she is operating an extremely high tech gadget which would be impossible for me to learn. She has a passion for photography, and she's great at what she does so I asked her if she would teach me what she knew for Week 6. Every day this week, I will take at least one photo and upload it to my blog. Tonight I uploaded three on here which shows three of the different things I worked on in my introduction course for the day.

I honestly feel like I learned so much in only about 2 hours. Today, Rebecca taught me the parts of the camera like the shutter, aperture, and viewfinder. She also explained the ISO, the importance of the composition of a photo, camera angle, and lighting. Just listing it might make it sound simple, but it wasn't that simple. I had many questions, and Rebecca was patient and understanding. She's a great teacher so far!

I'll explain my three photos. The photo at the top was taken by me, and I love it! That was the first composition that I did. Rebecca had me change around the shutter and aperture, experimenting with which settings brought more/less light into the photo. The second one is the one above with the chair in it. In this one, I really just worked on the composition. I put the cup there with a tea bag in it and then the bible on the chair....just wanted to give the idea that someone had just been doing there devotions and drinking a cup of tea. It was fun playing around with different ideas. Then the last picture I took is the one to the left. In this one, I was playing around with the focus as well as trying to abide by the rule of thirds. My focus was the angel and everything else I wanted out of focus. And I didn't want the angel in the dead center which had to do with the rule of thirds.

So what do you think? I know they aren't the most excited pictures to you guys, but I love them because I worked hard to take them. I took the time to learn how to take them, and now pictures mean so much more to me than just aim and shoot. I'm excited for this week as Rebecca teaches me more! Keep checking back each day for a new photo! And as always, thanks for reading : )