Zombie Flamingos

Hi all, and welcome to week 1 of a new challenge.  My challenge.  Well, a challenge I’m setting for myself, but inviting you to join along should you wish to.

What is this challenge?  Well, I call it 1 Thing 10 Ways (#1T10W), and it’s a weekly challenge I am setting for myself to work on my photography skills, technical and compositional.  What is it all about?  Well, it’s about picking one thing to photograph, and taking 10 pictures of it.  10 pictures using different apertures, exposures, shutter speeds, lenses, angles, light, etc…whatever I like.  To see the ordinary in different ways; to make me think; to make me learn,; to help make me see the world in different ways.

I am going to post my challenge photos weekly on Wednesdays.  No reason.  It just seems like something fun to perk up my week!  And you are welcome to join if you like – just ping back to my weekly post.  What will I be posting?  Well, 10 pictures of some thing – for now, my challenge will be taking pictures of things in our house – and giving some details about each photo, what settings and which lens I used, and the thinking behind each photo (whatever that thinking may be).  And no pictures of kittens or flowers.  Don’t worry, I’ll still be posting those, just not for this challenge.

So, without further ado: 1 Thing 10 Ways, week 1.

First, a disclaimer.  I am still figuring out what this challenge will be all about for me.  Writing down my settings is hard enough, but I also now realize I need to keep track of how many shots I take on each setting/lens so I don’t sit in front of my computer wondering which picture is which, which I ended up doing here.  And no, I can’t check the metadata as I use Kevin’s non-digital lenses for most of the shots, so aperture and focal length are not recorded.  It’s all up to me.  Also, I need to find a better balance between thinking technical settings and composition.  I know, I know.  You should always think composition first. Hopefully the more I practice, the easier it will get! So, start my muddled journey with me now:

The door at the end of the stairs (200mm, F4, 400ISO, 1/25)

And now a series I like to call “thinking I would try perspective changes, but not really understanding what I was doing”.  It didn’t really work, but it gave me some ideas of how to make it work.

1: 200mm, F4, 400ISO, 1/25 (and Elliot who wanted to know what was going on and why he wasn’t involved)

2: 100mm, F2.8, 100ISO, 1/25 (and a little closer).  Why 2.8?  Well, it is a dark hallway, but I guess I could have left it at F4 and raised my ISO back to 400…

3:  85mm, F2.8, 100ISO, 1/25 (and a little closer again).

4:  50mm, F2.8, 100ISO, 1/25 (and a little closer again).

5:  28mm, F2.8, 100ISO, 1/25 (and a little closer again).

6:  And now, a shot of the doorknob from above with 28mm, F2.8, 100ISO, 1/25

7: Now I wanted to try a few close-ups.  This is me standing close and zooming with my 85-200, at 200mm, F4, 400ISO, 1/25

8: Close-up with the 100mm, F2.8, ISO400, 1/25

9:  How about a macro with my 100mm macro?  F2.8m ISO400, 1/20 (getting darker the closer I get).  Also, hand held, so like some of the other shots, not as focused as I might like.

10:  And finally, the 100mm from the side at F2.8, ISO400, 1/20