Pam's Weeks 1 and 2: A Little of This and A Little of That

Welcome 2015!  I am still rather surprised that it's 2015 already and I'm still so young (haha), but also that I actually completed last year's photo project in spite of some setbacks and pitfalls.  I am thinking that the Project 52 may be easier to accomplish in that I really have to only complete 1 picture per week but then I feel all sorts of extra pressure to make it spectacular!  Yikes....

Anyways, I am late with these weeks' posts as my husband and I just this morning, 13 hours later than originally scheduled, thanks to Air Canada, arrived back from our vacation.  I love how they give you all sorts of loyalty points that when redeemed have you making multiple inconvenient connections versus the direct flights that would save so much time (and likely save them money on hotel and meal voucher compensations).  I am now posting these blog photos to procrastinate writing the e-mails I need to write to them to express my displeasure.

I will admit though that prior to posting this, I've had a peek at everyone else's posts and I'm rather intimidated.  There is some serious creativity and talent in this group; I kind of feel like an imposter.  I have to remind myself that it isn't a competition but merely a creative challenge and a chance to learn about angles, lighting, composition, interpretation, and the different things my camera is capable of.  My goal is to better myself and my creativity and photography and not to outdo everyone else (this becomes a struggle when you have this inner competitive perfectionist you are constantly battling to keep under wraps).

I couldn't choose just 1 photo for each challenge and will probably have similar struggles in future weeks.  Please accept my apologies in advance for my wordy posts and for inundating you with multiple photographs due to my own indecisiveness (another thing I struggle with constantly).

As well, I know that this wasn't part of the assignments at all but I'm not sure if facebook is still doing the random photo posting and I just thought these ruins were so beautiful and impressive that I needed to include a photo of them.  These are the Xunantunich ruins in Belize (it's pronounced Shu-nantunich and is otherwise known as "tuna sandwich").  Being terrified of heights, climbing up was no small feat but the view was incredible and made the bumming down the steep, narrow staircases with no railings completely worthwhile.  You can actually see Guatemala from the top of the El Castillo ruin, which is the one in this photo.

Week One - Beginnings and Endings

The obvious choices to me were sunrises and sunsets.  I also tried to take a picture of the book I was starting prior to vacation but wasn't particularly happy with how it turned out.  I should mention that the book itself was interesting though; it was Station Eleven by Emily Mandel.  It was adult dystopian literature which is a departure from my typical interests but I enjoyed it.  Here are the ones I sort of liked....

 This is the start of my "amaryllis" plant.  A friend gave it to us for Christmas so I planted it the night before we left on vacation so that I could take a beginning photo.

 A picture from the plane at the beginning of our trip.  Technically, this was taken on the 2nd leg as we left the Sault before the sun was up and I slept all the way to Toronto.  This was taken between Toronto and New Orleans.

 Sunsets in the Caribbean...

This is a picture of Houston at the end of our vacation.  It also looks like the sun is still in the process of rising so it could be a beginning and an ending.

Week Two:  Monochrome

I'm not sure if these pictures technically count as monochrome.  I certainly was not at all responsible for setting up the pictures and organizing them at all; we can thank Mother Nature for that.  They are a single colour in various shades though which I think is what we were going for.

 This is the blue sky and water of the Gulf of Mexico when we finally hit heat and sunshine.

 Another picture of the blue sky and sunshine but this one is less turquoise and more blue-grey.

 On the beach in Costa Maya, Mexico.  We ended up with an unplanned beach day in Mexico since fog in Houston delayed our sailing for about 18 hours which meant that we were no longer able to go to Roatan, Honduras as originally planned.

A river in Belize.  The whole country seemed to be lush and green like this.  Perhaps the rain of the day before helped out.

Now that I'm all caught up, I should run off and do some laundry (oh the joys of vacation), get the kids into bed, lunches packed and begin contemplating how to capture faceless portraits.....