30 Day Photography Challenge: Day 1 - Self Portrait

Yep, the 1st photo for this challenge results in my ugly mug in an extremely unflattering photo... a simple, plain, boring photo.. yes? Not for me though. This photo actually has several "layers" to it (and yes, I can be an Ogre at times! ;-P every time I hear that word, I hear Donkey's voice! Weird, I know!).

First off, taking it caused me to step out of my comfort zone in 2 different areas: 1) I hate, absolutely HATE having photos taken of me, and 2) I feel very uncomfortable & self concious taking photos out in public, and this was down a street with lots of houses and people/cars moving about, so I'm sure there would've been at least a couple of people who spotted me, like a weirdo, standing on the footpath in front of this tree in someone's yard, taking a photo of myself. :-/

The next "layer" is that this photo is the 1st of several things: 1) the 1st photo of this challenge, 2) the 1st photo I've taken this year, 3) the 1st photo to kickstart my many months-long photography block, and 4) the 1st photo of me since making the decision today that it was time to stop avoiding being in front of the camera. I have bugger all photos of me with friends, family, my pets, etc.. my "memory" photos always contain the things I love, but almost never with me with them. This is one of my changes for this year, 2012: the year of change - more photos of me with loved ones and doing what I love.

The 3rd "layer" to this photo is that this is who I am, right now, at this moment... seriously overweight, constantly tired, badly dressed in sloppy clothes, hair pulled back to keep it out of my face... basically me not giving a damn about my appearance, and caught up with the depression that has been hounding my heels for so many years, steadily getting worse. Another of my changes for this awesome year of change will be to give myself a bit of a make-over! A completely new look! I want to start taking more care with my appearance, the way I dress, do my hair, etc, as well as getting fit and hopefully losing weight. I've never been, and will probably never be, a "girlie-girl". Complete and utter tomboy since I was a kid. But, I am starting to find a few small "girlie-girl" type things I like... painting my nails, using hand cream, wearing dresses/skirts. So these will be part of the new "me", along with a hair cut... and COLOUR! I want to do something completely crazy with my hair, just to help throw me out of this funk I've been in for years. So I plan to dye it for the first time ever, with some crazy colour... which is the main reason I took this photo where I did! The tree behind me has gorgeous dark plumy purple leaves (crappy photo does not show the colour properly, so just trust me on this... those leaves are dark purple, not brown or anything), and being an absolute purple loving nut, I've decided when I dye my hair, it will be a shade of purple. I'm currently bouncing between 2 shades of purple that I really like... a dark plum type purple similar to the leaves, and a deep "royal" purple which is far more vibrant and in your face.

So as simple and plain as this photo seems, it's not.. not for me anyway. When I first decided to do this challenge, I'd originally seen it simply as a way to get me back into photography in a nice easy manner, because the topic to focus on was given to me each day. Yup... I'd planned to do just a quick, bugger all effort, shot of "just something that fits the daily topic". At least it would get me clicking again right? In the process I might just get inspired to start taking other photos... but at least this was a starting point, yes? After taking this photo... HELL NO! Although the topic for each day in the list is pretty plain and ordinary, & most of the time the subject of each of my challenge photos will probably be just ordinary things, I now plan to put a LOT more effort & thought into each photo. I want them each to actually mean something important... not just some random photo of a plant, person, or object simply because it "fits the topic". I also want to start working more on the composition, lighting etc too... I've slacked off for so long that my photography skills are extremely rusty, and I'm rather appalled at just how bad this photo is technically! So, time to work on it, get my minimal skills a bit more polished once again. Time to challenge myself properly!

2012: Year of Change and Learning

Welcome to a brand new year, and my brand new blog! I hope everyone's 2012 is already off to as awesome a start as mine. Only a few days in, and already this year shows promise of being far more productive, fun & creative than any years previous! I'm working on making 2012 both the "Year of Change" & "Year of Learning" for me (and the rest of my little family), so really hoping this is going to stay a fun & happy year, full of creating and learning new things. I have given myself this year to play, experiment & learn new crafts with the goal of opening up an online shop to sell my creations at the beginning of 2013. There are so many ideas I want to explore, and have been having a LOT of trouble figuring out where to start, but last night things finally clicked into place as to just where to focus for now, so bring on February when I will be able to get cracking on them! Before I can start though, a few things needed to be dealt with.

First up was to finally get my workspace sorted out... something I've been wanting to do since we moved here over a year ago, heck... something I've been wanting to do for several years! I just haven't known where to start! The problem with being interested in so many different types of crafts has lead to me having several huge stashes of assorted materials/tools for different crafts, not wanting to throw anything away JUST IN CASE it could come in handy! Yup... total pack rat here! So, with the help of 2 wonderful friends, I got stuck in the other day and finally have a semi-organized workspace. So the rest of this month will be devoted to clearing up the rest of my workspace, and the other areas of the house (especially the bedroom, which has become my other workspace, so is rapidly filling up with craft stuff too!) that have become cluttered & annoyed me for months, as well as finishing off the many WIPs I have created over the last couple of months. I want to start February with a clean plate, ready to dive in and get stuck into the many many MANY ideas chattering away in my head, demanding to be put into some kind of physical form!

Next up was this blog... sorting out somewhere where I can share my photography (IF I can actually kick my butt into gear in that area again... really hit a slump there lately!), my creations, the awesome things & artists I find online, etc. The problem here is, as a few of you will know, I absolutely SUCK at keeping up with blogs! Lol! I've tried several times to do the whole blog thing, but always end up slacking with the updates, so this year I am determined to make sure I update once a week at the VERY LEAST! I'm hoping that by setting myself a few challenges & sharing those, that will help give me a minimum of one blog post per week to write about, and slowly work my way up from there. I'd really love to be blogging daily, but we'll see how we go.

As for the challenges...
Well, so far I've decided to do a "12 shawls in 2012" challenge, as I have become totally addicted to shawl knitting. Hence why I currently have 4 different shawls on the needles, although no finished ones! The hard part for me will be working out exactly WHICH shawls will fill up the other 8 gaps, as there are so many shawls I REALLY want to do! Might just have to do the whole "throw the names in a bucket and draw them out" gig.
I've also decided I seriously need to kickstart my photography again! As I said before, over the last few months, probably going on a year now in fact, I've hit a major wall when it comes to my photography... which I really hate as photography is another of my passions/obsessions! I hate that I've let it slide out of my life, and am determined to awaken my love for it again this year, as it has given me so much in the past. I seriously miss the sense of peace I get from it! So, to help get me going, I'm taking up a small challenge a friend pointed out to me. She's already started, but I've only now decided I'm really going to go ahead with it.

Once I have completed this 30 Day Photography Challenge, I plan to embark on 2 other projects, both being part of my Day Zero Project. These will be bigger projects, but also ones where I'll pick the topics.
* A 365 Grateful Project and
* a 52 Emotion Project. Really looking forward to getting into these, and very much hoping I can actually keep up with them! I will, of course, be sharing these projects on this blog. ;o)

I'm sure I will come up with other projects along the way, but will be adding them slowly, as I don't want to do my usual and overwhelm myself with a large workload, which tends to lead to the depression kicking in in a very bad way, and not getting any of it done at all.

Right.. that is quite enough ramble for now, and at least gives you a bit of an idea of what lies ahead if you decide to follow along. Hope you enjoy the ride! :o)