Personal challenge, part I

Several months ago I set some personal challenges for myself in the coming year. Because I felt that my photography was getting very stale, one of my challenges was to sharpen the saw…the photographic saw, that is. I didn’t need to spend more time on my photography. I was already taking a daily photowalk and posting a blip each day at Blipfoto.com, in addition to intermittently maintaining two photography blogs. So increasing the time I spent on taking and processing pictures was more likely to blunt the teeth of the saw rather than sharpen them.

In retrospect, I decided that the problem was that I was taking too many pictures. The dullness and staleness of my vast collection of digital photographs became apparent as I scrolled through the thousands of pictures I had accumulated over the past few years. Not only was I taking a lot of pictures every day, I was hanging on to most of them, and I wasn’t very discriminating about quality. I needed to clean out my collection, keep only what mattered (after first deciding what that was), and set higher standards going forward. This has turned out to be an even bigger challenge than I anticipated. It has involved purchasing new hardware and new software, trying new techniques, and learning a new work flow. In short, a major challenge and the start of an interesting journey!

Tomorrow I will fill in some of the details of the early part of this journey, so tune in, if you are interested. Right now, I will just tell you two things that weren’t included on this journey: a new camera and/or lenses and vacation trips to exotic places where I could (without a doubt) take fabulous photographs. Neither of those was in the budget.

I will see you tomorrow, Blogmates. Meanwhile, here are a few pictures from my morning photo adventure, on which I heard a snorting sound in the shrubbery and watched as a doe dashed out, closely followed by…Well, look at the pictures, and you will see what the snorting was all about.

Ater the commotion in the underbrush, this doe dashed onto the trail in front of me. She was frantic in her haste to get away from something, but from what? As I continued to watch, this is what emerged…

As the doe fled across the trail and into the brush on the other side, the buck’s sense of urgency evaporated, and I watched for several minutes as he grazed by the side of the trail.

Apparently his mind as on food instead of females!

At that point, I was feeling a little nervous by his nearness, so I very quietly edged past and on down the trail, while he proudly claimed that patch as his!

A few feet further along, I spotted the doe hiding in the scrubby growth. “I don’t blame you for running,” I told her. “Just lay low and keep quiet!”

That was the end of my adventure for today, but I captured one more photo to top off the morning. This handsome cardinal was very pleased to pose for the camera, and isn’t he a beauty?

Apparently, adventures can be had, at least on some level, even without taking expensive trips to exotic locations.

~Carolyn aka Skip