photography challenge.

I joined Tasra Dawson's challenge to improve my photography over the next thirty days. The requirements are:

1. to shoot something each day,

2. to read something out of my instruction guide each day,

3. to look at the work of another photographer each day.

I have to remember to NOT compare my pictures with anyone else, as Tasra is a professional along with many others who have joined her, and I am not. I am, pretty much, a complete newbie. And I'm okay with that. I figure this would be a good way to learn more, push myself out of the boundaries of plain old point and shoot (even with a DSLR camera), and become inspired anew every day.

So, the first photo I did is a type of photo that I hate. Despise. Loathe. Detest. But following through on the "pushing out of boundaries" theme, I did it anyway: a self-portrait. And, following through on the aforementioned theme even further, I played around with some in-camera editing. Very little, but some editing nonetheless.

I'm not nearly as pretty as I used to be, but ho-hum, I guess a little bit of that comes with age and life progression. It's not my whole face, because I am trying to learn to do more slightly "artsy" photos.

Okay...this one isn't really "artsy," but it's not the typical run-of-the-mill self-portrait either, so it's okay.

As for the instruction guide, I have a Nikon D40/D40x Digital Field Guide that I got back in March I think. Today I went back and re-read pages 2-5 about shooting modes. I may have to read that a few times.

I've looked at quite a few photographers' work today, as I have a ton of blogs in my Google reader that provide a great deal of inspiration. Not only that, but there are a few photogs on etsy by whose work I am completely enchanted. One is Champagne Photography. Definitely worth a look.

My Eye-Fi card is still giving me fits on and off, so hopefully I won't run into problems uploading pics tomorrow. And I've discovered that I am over my 200-photo limit on Flickr, so some of my earlier photos are not being shown right now. A Flickr Pro Account is definitely on my birthday and Christmas wish lists.