crystal mallow

In order to push myself to get back into my photography, my husband inspired me to do a photography challenge. I decided to do the #dogwood 52 week photography challenge. I have also invited some of my talented friends to participate in this challenge with me to make it more exciting. I am going to try and keep up with this challenge weekly, posting my images and explain my technique and thought process for each image. I hope this will be an exciting adventure recorded here on my webpage for my friends and family to follow. Enjoy! 

Week one of the challenge was to tell a story using the rule of thirds. In this picture I show my sons concentration while using his tablet by placing his "concentrating" face in the upper right side of the image.

This weeks challenge was to take an interesting photo with no post processing, so this image is how my camera's sensor recorded the scene. Unfortunately a camera's sensor does not have the capability to capture the dynamic range that our eyes can. Our eye can see the scene with a larger range of lights to darks, colors etc. So usually some post processing is done to make the image look as we "our eyes" saw it.  

Week 3 challenge was land. It could be a landscape or something inspired by land. My two besties and I decided to get up early on a foggy Sunday morning and freeze our rears off up at the beach. It was worth it. We got some amazing shots of the fog at Charlotte Beach. Then once we were numb and having so much fun we went to Durand Eastman park to capture some of the fog within the trees. Since we were right there and it was such and eerie day, we decided to stop at the  "Lady in White" Castle. We got some amazing shots there as well and had so much. We ended our adventure with a nice hearty breakfast at a diner. Yum!  

Week 4 was to tell a story using a mirror. This one took me a while to think about. I really wanted to crack a mirror and take a picture of a friends sad face in the pieces to show a "broken soul". But then I thought it would be cool to take a picture of say my Grandmother looking into a small makeup mirror and have the reflection be of her younger self to show "reflection on our self and life". Then I came across a picture of a little girl outside in the winter looking at herself in the mirror at an image of herself in the summer. From this my husband put the idea in my head of a reflection of a super hero. I loved the idea and went with it. I love love love how this turned out. I believe it shows how in our youth we believe we can, and are anything we want to be. When my son is wearing his iron man pajamas and is pretending to be iron man, in his head he really is, and that is reflected in these images. 

Week 5's challenge was to take 10 shots of one object at different angles, distances and focal lengths. I love this railroad bridge on East River road and decided to make that my focus point. Sammy (my 12 year old Golden Retriever) and I got up during the Golden hour Saturday morning and went to take these shots. I love having my partner in crime with me when I go on these shoots. Since I have a habit of taking a lot of shots at different angles etc. It was actually hard for me to narrow this shoot down to ten shots. These are ten of my favorite shots from the morning. I'm not sure I could pick just one.  Enjoy!

Week 6 was a challenging assignment. We were supposed to take a picture with the inspiration of candy, but without actually using candy. I wanted to do something unique. So I decided to do this science experiment with my son. for the experiment you were supposed to cut an orange in half, poke the fruit sections with toothpicks, and then add different color food coloring to each fruit piece. the experiment was supposed to show how the food coloring would not permeabilize the orange membranes between the fruit slices.  Unfortunately this experiment failed horribly so to achieve my original image goal Photoshop was needed. 

Images 1, 2 and 3 are soldier plots from the Civil War. Images 4. 5 and 6 were from WWI

Week 7 was an especially emotional topic. This week's goal was to tell a story of something forgotten. I spent a lot of time thinking about what story I wanted to tell with my photography. With all the uproar recently I decided to tell the story of the lives that were lost, for us to have the freedoms we are privileged and take for granted today. In today's society it seems like it is an every man for himself mentality. Everyone is so sensitive, so ready for a fight, to sue, to act out because they have been wronged, or feel they have been wronged. We have forgotten what teamwork, and working together means. To help those less fortunate than ourselves. We have forgotten what our ancestors went through for us to have such a cushy lifestyle. For our problems to be so petty. We have forgotten our past....and that is dangerous.  I decided to photograph veteran grave plots in the Mt. Hope cemetery to show an emotional image of so many lives lost, to fight for us, and to protect us. To give us freedom. It was a very emotional time spent at the cemetery, looking at all of these stones where the names have been weathered off, cracked and broken.  To me the image of the broken flag was a strong representative image of our broken country and if you look at the date on the stone, it reminds us of our independence and freedom, July 4th! I hope you all enjoy these images as much as I enjoyed shooting them. This was a very emotional photo shoot. I salute all of those who have, and are fighting for our country.