From Clicking to Creating
From Clicking to Creating
Hard to believe another New Year is right around the corner. Most of us think about new ideas, new challenges, or how we can improve in a certain area.
I’ve been thinking about all of these things, in relation to my photography. Every year I look back on my past photos, and think, I make better photos now than I use to, but I still want to learn and improve more. So I came up with an idea that will go along with the 52 week photo challenges for 2018. From Clicking to Creating-Tips on making a better photo.
This year I want to share with you my process in a weekly Tuesday post as I go through the challenges. Not just the photos, but how I took the prompt, interpreted it, decided what to shoot, and how I edited the image. This years Dogwood 52 is even more challenging than last year, with different categories, and a wide variety of weekly prompts made to really make you think. The 2LilOwls is just a nice, easy going challenge that can be as easy, or as hard as you want to make it.
In turn, I’m hoping that we can all learn something new and valuable, and that by sharing, we all become better at making photos. Those of you interested in photography, I would like to invite you to participate in one, or both of the 52 week challenges and share your ideas, and inspiration either on your own blog, or by commenting here. If there is enough interest, we could have a once weekly blog hop, or place links to blog posts in the comments of my post every week. I am open to ideas, if there is interest in that sort of thing.
Both of these weekly challenges have their own facebook groups were the photos are shared. If you are interested, just ask to join and the admin for the groups will add you.
Denise Love from 2LilOwls.com manages the group for her challenge, 2 Lil Owls photography challenge. This is the PDF file with all the prompts for 2018. let’s+do+52
The Dogwood 52 week challenge group is called, Official Dogwood Photography Challenge. Here is the PDF for that group with all the prompts. Dogwood 2018
I hope you guys enjoy From Clicking to Creating, and that you join me in the challenge to improve.
Hello, I am looking forward to seeing more of your beautiful photography in the new year.
Enjoy your day and new week.. Wishing you and yours a very happy New Year!
What a lovely idea! I shall be following along with anticipation! <3 Happy New Year!
My challenge is finding either the people or landscape I desire. However, maybe the subjects that can give me a challenge are everyday objects right under my nose! That will be a challenge to make the everyday extradordinary.
SO true. That’s one thing about these photo challenges, is they really make you think and stretch.
We wish we could spend more time working on photography, but with work and sports, we are limited. It does seem that our photos do continue to improve at least, but yours are phenomenal!
What a wonderful idea. I’m in! I do not have a blog, nor am I on facebook (too afraid of the time suck) so I’ll comment here. I am a fan of a local artist (Deb @ Blue Twig Studio) who encourages everyone to select a word (or words) of the year as a tool to grow and nurture yourself. I just realized my word for 2018 is “Photography”! :-)
Yeah! So excited to have you share your photographic journey here.
Lauri, I was thinking about you, and the photo challenge. I would love to see what you do, and the only way to share photos in the comments is with an online link to the image. If you have, or start, an account on one of the photo sharing sites like Flickr or 500px then you can link to your photos and we can see what you created. The Dogwood challenge is also on Flickr as a group.
Thanks Mary. Good idea. I’m including a practice link here to see if I have the hang of it yet.
The link works great if I click on your name in the comment. Another way to do it is to place the link in the actual comment after you write it. Then others can know that is a clickable link, and see the photo too. It’s going to be a fun year!
Ok, this has been good for me to get all the bugs worked out. I have fixed the problems you were having, I did a test comment, and it’s all working now. You should be able to place a link in the comment form by pasting, and it will now accept two links.
Hi Mary, My responses to your new letter are being returned as “undeliverable”. Is there a problem on your end?
Lloyd
Apparently there was, I tested it and got the same thing. It should be fixed with the next blog mailing though. Thanks so much for telling me.
Great idea. I always love seeing your take on the challenges. I think I’ll print out the PDF. Thanks for the links. Miss that you guys didn’t schedule any shows in Cave Creek this winter. We’re heading over to Yuma and Havasu next week and I hope to get the camera working again. With no precipitation this fall in the Phoenix valley, the desert is looking rather dry and sad and less than photogenic.
What a great idea! I can’t wait to learn about your process–especially choosing and framing shots.
I am a terrible photographer and probably always will be. But I know I’ve improved over the years. And it’s not a bad goal just to get better, right?
I love this idea. I’ve had great difficulty making myself find the time to learn more about post-processing. It seems that you’ve really nailed that so I know that I’ll learn from you.
I’m a bit overcommitted for the early part of 2018… so I’ll have to evaluate how much I can contribute. Also, we have lots of travel planned and rarely have internet access while camping :( I love the travel but I have to account for blackout times in the scheduling of my year!
You’ve come so far Mary! I’ve advanced too but not as fast. Every year, I put new photos on our electronic frame, and my husband is wowed by how much I improved in the previous year. I never see it as clearly as he does!
You are a great example of the more you shoot, the more you learn. I would love for you to participate when you can. I have had to “batch” some of my posts in the past due to internet stuff. The Dogwood challenge would be a good one for you. It’s more advanced, and last year I learned some new stuff and stretched myself farther. It’s fun to look for something different to shoot too.
Sounds like a great idea! I like learning new things. Though my photography skills are mostly limited to my phone’s camera, I do occasionally use my little Canon point-n-shoot with a few bells and whistles. Maybe I’ll try the 2lilowls once in a while. I just can’t commit to anything additional right now. And, other than Ducky and Shadow, my available subjects are pretty limited.
Torrey has been my model many, many times. I would love for you to post what you can, when you can.
I look forward to your Tuesday posts!