The idea behind this challenge is to use the natural light streaming through a window to create a great blown out background, while using a reflector to cast light on the face of the subject.

As always, Josh is my test subject. It helps that he is so attractive 😉

At first we tried this at our house. But the window pane was too small, it was always in the picture! I achieved the white background through photoshop.

We decided to go to a newly built building on campus. It has so many windows…there is a lot of great natural light.

 

Can I just say that I am loving this challenge so far?  I mean it’s hard and requires some planning to make sure I actually take pictures, but I would never have thought to do these types of pictures in a million years!

Slow-sync flash is a technique in which a photo is taken in a dark space where the flash goes off but the shutter speed is slow. The effect is an illuminated subject with ambient light showing up in the background (because of the slow shutter speed). It can also create a really cool effect if the lights in the background are moving.

We tried this in the parking lot after church. My first attempts at selfies, didn’t turn out quite like I wanted. There needs to be enough light on the face to get the camera to focus. And I needed more lights in the background.

On a night that Joe and Josh were sleeping (but I wasn’t. How cruel) I decided to get a little creative with the light trails. Here are some of my favorites. My brain is exploding with all the different possibilities I can do with this technique.

Oh, I LOVE the way these turned out!

My first week of my 52 week photo challenge is done! As I mentioned before, I am using a book I picked up at the bookstore called 52 Weekend Digital Photo Projects. I am really excited about this book because I am hoping it will break me out of my photography shell. I’ve seen other people do photo challenges in the past like 365 days of pictures, when they snap a picture everyday for the year. I wanted to do a yearly photo challenge for 2015, and settled on doing a weekly challenge. However, I was afraid that it would just be pictures I would have taken anyways (pictures of Joe or family and friends). I was wondering how I could make this challenging and exciting. I found my answer when I found this book! It had enough variation in the projects that I knew I would be challenged, yet they seemed achievable. My first project was to create a bright backlit picture. I cut a lemon very thinly, placed it in a baking dish with yellow dish soap, put a lamp under, and snapped a few pictures!