Leading Lines and A Little Bit Of Reflection

This week my photographic challenge was leading lines.  Now, I know what leading lines are, and I've taken leading lines photos before.  Check out the above photo from our trip to Boston last year.  THAT is a leading line.  The photo I managed today, after thoughtful consideration all week long, is a stretch.

See, I wanted to get a picture of the clouds hovering down low on the mountains, and the graveyard was the best place to do that from.  And I thought, "Great!  Gravestones.  Leading lines!"  But apparently they don't plant gravestones in a straight line in Moab.  So my leading line is a curve, but it does lead your eye to the cool shaft of light coming out of the sky and bursting into cloud there above that last headstone in my leading line.  If you can see a line, that is . . .

While I was there hanging out at the graveyard, I took a few more pictures of graves and the cloudy mountains.  The tall grey gravestone you can see in  the background there marks the grave of China Lutz, a southern belle from the 1800's who helped settle Moab.  I played China in a play about Star Hall for three summers running, so it was fun to find her grave.  I really liked other two old, battered gravestones nearby, also, so to fit them, China's grave and the cloudy mountains, I had to forget about leading lines.  

 And, while I was there and the clouds were hanging, I snapped a few pictures of Debbie's grave. Then Dave called me and asked where I was, and it was awkward explaining that I had run up to the graveyard really quick.  Who does that?  So I crawled under the fence like Peter Rabbit and went home.  

When I started this photo challenge, it was to help me get my camera out and use it in ways different than just the normal everyday snapshot photos I tend to take.  The above photo challenge - leading lines for this week - is a 52 week challenge.  So once a week my creativity is stretched and I have to think about a different way to take photos all the time.  This week I found another challenge in one of my CLICK magazines that I really liked, so I decided to do it, too.  

 The first challenge was reflections.  Capri and I had fun taking pictures of her and her reflection in a puddle on our back porch left by the rain.

 Can I just stop and say how much I am loving this rainy, sweatshirt weather we are having this lovely January?  I can't remember a January I have enjoyed more.  Or enjoyed at all!  While the rest of the world is being covered with blanket after blanket of snow, we are getting rain here.  It's just so great!!

 The idea for reflection photos in the magazine was capturing something inside and outside a window at the same time.  So, as you are taking a picture of something inside, you also capture something different happening outside.  I altered that a little bit and just captured Capri and her reflection in the water in the same photo.  That was creative enough for me.  The above photo is SO cute!  The wind blew her umbrella inside out :)

And this little Capri is SUCH a great poser, after you warm her up to the idea and make it sound fun!  

So today I bring you two photo challenges.  Leading lines . . .sort of, and Reflections . . . sort of.  At the very least, I captured some cuteness I would not have captures otherwise.  And that is always a good day.   

Fresh

It's January!  Of the year 2017.  Actually, it's been January for a while now.  It's the 14th of January, but I'm a little behind.  That's just me.  For a New Year's Resolution I joined a photography challenge just to try and up my photography game and to keep me from taking the same picture, but of different people in a different locations kind of thing.  I looked at several 52 week challenges, but in almost every one the first challenge was a photo of yourself.  A selfie.  Now, I did just take a photo of myself, and it wasn't easy.  It also wasn't pretty!  It was for my concealed weapon's permit renewal, so there were some restrictions, but still . . .  I finally found one that had some challenging photography elements in it, and the first guideline was Fresh.  Now, if you're starting this challenge in January, which I would think most people are, then my question is, what is Fresh about the month of January? In a normal January, everything is cold, dead and covered in snow.   So, this took some thought, but I finally came  up with the above photo after Aiden and I planted - yes planted - basil and tomato seeds in pots today.  See, the rest of the world is plagued with an over abundance of snow, ice and cold, but here in Moab, it has been THE BEST JANUARY EVER!!  So far.  Today we were out in sweatshirts cleaning the yard and planting in pots.  That, to me, is pretty fresh.

 And while Aiden and I planted, Capri rode the little motorcycle around and around the yard.  There are so many things I love about these pictures.  The fact that she is riding in a skirt, tights and Aiden's snow boots, that she has her jacket on backwards, and likes it that way!, her determined look in the bottom picture, and her smile that lights up the world in the top, and the one little braid that escaped her helmet and is hanging down in front of her cute face.

It was a good day.  A perfectly wonderful January day, made more wonderful by the absence of cold and snow. It was so very Fresh.