Family | Suzanne Earley

I have attempted, in the past, to do a daily photo project. I think that in 2009 I made it as far as March, plus a few weeks in June. I’m trying again this year, but rather than start on January 1, I decided to go ahead and start on the 25th of December, since that’s the day I got my new camera. It seemed less like a New Year’s Resolution That Would Fail that way.

Plus, I haven’t really told anyone that that’s what I’m “officially” doing, because that sort of statement can sometimes be the kiss of death for a project. I probably shouldn’t say anything now, but I’m pretty pleased with the fact that it has now been 3 weeks, and while not all of the photos are perfect, none of them are last minute crap photos because I want to get a photo in before I go to bed…

One of the things I have done that will hopefully help keep up my enthusiasm and provide inspiration and ideas is to join a community called Capture Your 365. Each month there are lists of photo prompts, and I get a daily reminder e-mail. I’ve used the daily prompt a few times, when I didn’t have something else I was already planning to capture, plus several of my photos have been inspired by ideas I’ve seen in the photo gallery at the CY365 site.

A lot of the photos I’ve used in my blog posts over the last 3 weeks have been my daily photos, but I’m not planning on making daily posts about the photos a habit. I might do a weekly wrap-up, and as I learn more about telling stories with photos, I will try to share what I learn, and hopefully I won’t totally screw up the explanations in the process.

Here’s a look at the first 3 weeks (click on the thumbnails for larger views…)

December 25 - Joe Laughing

My new camera didn’t get opened until the end of the unwrapping, but I tried to play a bit after and got some fun pictures of the boys. I love Joe’s smile in this, he his looking at his brother, getting ready to do something mischievous... Day 1

December 26 Family Portrait

There’s always got to be one in a crowd, and today, it was Joe’s turn. We set the timer and took a total of 10 pictures: he was smiling in exactly NONE of them. Day 2

December 27 - Cocoa

I was trying to experiment with taking pictures with slow and fast shutter speeds, and was hoping to get a picture of Cocoa wagging her tail, but she kept following me and getting up nice and close: she wasn’t interested in posing, she just wanted someone to pet her, as usual. Day 3

December 28 Will and laptop

I thought Will knew I was sitting on the floor with my tripod taking pictures, so I was a little surprised that when I called his name, he actually looked up at me. This was my only chance, though. I had to resort to taking pictures of the cat after this one. I really like this picture, though, with the abandoned shoe and the piles of quilts. Looks like our real life... Day 4

December 29 Self Portrait

71 pictures later, this is the best I could come up with. The expression was a pretty accurate representation about how the entire day went. Meh. Day 5

December 30

I was taking pictures of the socks that I'm making for Mark when he walked in. I turned around and snapped quick. He's a good sport. Day 6

December 31 -- Handsome Miles

I'd love to take pictures of my family, but all they do is sit and play PS3 and computer games and give me the stink-eye when I try to turn my camera on them. The cat, now, sometimes I get lucky and get a really nice shot of him. Day 7

January 1 -- 12 Pairs of Socks

Inspired by Yarn Harlot's personal sock club, I'm making my own sock-a-month club. Some are partially started pairs that need to be finished, one has a planned pattern and the rest are spare skeins that have been laying around and need to become socks. And even though I already have 4 in progress, I think I need to go start a new pair, don't you think? Day 8

January 2 -- Mark and Katie

I spent most of my camera time today experimenting with aperture sizes, looking for a creative interesting shot of a number of different inanimate objects. 170 shots today. And of course, my favorite picture of the entire day is the one I snapped with hardly any thought of Mark and the dog. Day 9

January 3 -- Frozen Ball

Need to experiment more with shooting basketball games. I ended up wishing I were lower in the bleachers, and that I used a faster shutter speed, rather than letting the camera choose. I have plenty of opportunity to experiment over the next month! I was pretty tickled to find this shot with the ball frozen up in the air! Day 10

January 4 -- My Office

My office, the nerve center of the secondary school. It's not much to look at, but it gets the job done. Sort of. I really need a window in this wall next to me. Or for the wall to go away... Day 11

January 5

Will's got the basketball in this one. I used a much faster shutter speed, but had to turn the ISO up pretty high. I think I could have dialed both down and gotten better pictures. It also didn't help that I didn't seem to be aiming in the right place, ever.... Our JH kids won all 3 games: girls, plus 7th boys and 8th boys. Yippee! Day 12

January 6 -- Miles Inside

Miles thinks it's terribly unfair that the dogs get to go outside and he has to stay in. The Capture Your 365 prompt for today was "Framed by a Doorway." It's not a great picture, but it's pretty typical and I thought it was funny that he was there when I ran outside in the unseasonable warmth to see what I could grab a photo of before I lost the light. Day 13

January 7 - Mark and Cocoa

We joke that Cocoa is his girlfriend. She loves him so much, she can hardly stand it. He kind of likes her, too... Day 14

January 8 - Light painting

The boys and I experimented with light painting this afternoon. It was a lot of fun, even if our photos didn't turn out real great. This was my favorite. Joe is posing, Will was behind him and "outlined" him with the flashlight. Funny how they were so willing to do this project, normally when I turn the camera on them, they frown or run the other way... Day 15

January 9 -- Feet

Totally stole this idea from another photographer. I have been trying to capture the timeout huddle at other games, getting everyone's bodies in, but this is way cooler to me. Day 16

January 10

Far too soon my boys will graduated from RC cars to REAL cars. This photo was inspired by a shot I saw of some matchbox cars, but I wasn't happy with my pictures of the cars until I hit upon this composition with a kid in the background. Day 17

January 11 Real Life

One's on the PS3, the other's on his computer. It was the other way around before supper. The prompt today was a narrow aperture, I used f/22.0 for this. The camera is sitting on the table. You could probably do a scavenger hunt picking out all of the stuff sitting out and about. Day 18

January 12

Oh goodie. It finally snowed. And it was super windy. But on a bright note, my children shoveled the drift in front of my side of the garage, without being asked... Day 19

January 13

Miles might be a black cat, but he is anything but unlucky. Well, I guess he thinks he's unlucky, since I still won't let him go outside... Day 20

January 14 -- My Guys

The boys were about a month overdue for a haircut. I wanted an "after" shot to share on Facebook, and Mark came running down because he wanted in on the action. I think he would like some of their hair, too... Day 21

I don’t ordinarily do this sort of thing, but I’m figuring that if it annoys you, you can just ignore it, and if you are willing to help, you’ll take two seconds to click a few buttons.

In July of 2010 we had an epic family vacation: two weeks of adventures that took us through Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas (and then back home through Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri). As I look back through the blog, I see that I never got further than posting about the very first part of the trip, through Rocky Mountain National Park.

Which is too bad, because the days after that were really amazing: we had splurged on an adventure with a company called Western River Expeditions. We got to visit Arches National Park, take an off-road Hummer Safari, and then spent 2 days rafting on the Colorado River, which included camping overnight under the stars.

It was totally worth every penny, and we had talked about making plans to do another, longer trip this past summer. Only, life intervened, and our vacation plans had to go by the wayside…

I still get e-mails from Western River Expeditions, and the most recent was an invitation to join a contest to try to win a trip: It’s a photo contest, and the person with the most votes WINS.

We are all over this. At least, I hope, that with YOUR help, we are…

I mean, look at these guys: