Retro Photography: November 2024

This week I will start the 52 week photography challenge ~ Dogwood.

Why? I have no style when it comes to photography. I'm often bored after work and want to try different techniques and see if I find something I like shooting more than other things and this is just for fun every week.

The Challenge

Week 1 - Eye Lines. Get your subject to direct the eyes of the audience with their eyes. What are they looking at?

Week 2 - Storms. The weather around you can effect your mood. Chase the storm and tell your story.

Week 3 - Soft. Give us your artistic interpretation of soft. It can mean anything you want it to be and don't get too literal.

Week 4 - Hands. Let's take the focus away from people's face and make their hands the center of attention. See what you can come up with.

Week 5 - Left to Right Rule. Compose an image with the left to right direction in mind. Its the way we write language in most countries.

Week 6 - Golden Ratio. The Fibonacci spiral leads the viewers eye to the squares (the subject), capture your image utilizing the Golden Ratio.

Week 7 - Ordinary. Make the ordinary look beautiful.

Week 8 - Family. Use family as your inspiration. Since this is the advanced challenge no people can be in the image.

Week 9 - Music. Use music as your inspiration. The theme this week is wide open and you can go wild with your imagination.

Week 10 - Symmetrical. Shoot a symmetrical landscape/urbanscape. This looks simple in the image but difficult and challenging to pull off.

Week 11 - A Tree. See if you can add to the collection of great images that focus on a tree.

Week 12 - Loop Lighting. Loop lighting is a commonly used portrait lighting technique. Shoot a portrait by using loop lighting. If you don't have off camera flash setup, get creative with how you light your subject.

Week 13 - Current Events. Use current events to inspire you. This could be political or not.

Week 14 - Environmental. Combine a subject with their environment to tell a story.

Week 15 - Bodyscape. Use the human body as your inspiration this week. The human form has been the study of art for millenia.

Week 16 - The Alphabet. Alphabet photography is taking photographs of objects to create a word.

Week 17 - Fill the Frame. Using Fill the Frame is a great way to isolate your subject and create interest in your photo. Can you do it with only one color in the frame? Fill the Frame with one color.

Week 18 - Classic Novel. Identify a classic novel or story through your image.

Week 19 - Who inspires you. Photograph the things that inspire you.

Week 20 - Candy. Let's focus on Macro photography this week and take photos of candy and make them look beautiful.

Week 21 - Circles. The circle represents the notions of totality. It is a universal symbol.

Week 22 - The Elderly. Tell the story of an elderly person through the power of your camera. Capture the lines of their life.

Week 23 - Magic ND Filter. Use an ND filter combined with a shutter speed of 30 seconds or even longer to create your image. Try a waterscape or even a busy landmark to see the magic happen.

Week 24 - Fill the Frame. Get up close and personal to fill your frame with your subject. No backgrounds or distractions.

Week 25 - Portrait Lighting. Flatter your subject with Butterfly, Rembrandt, Split, or Loop Lighting.

Week 26 - Messy. Make messy look organized

Week 27 - Self-Portrait. Tell a story by taking your own photo without showing your face.

Week 28 - Waterscape. Focus on water this week. This could be the Ocean, lake, river, pond, or a puddle.

Week 29 - Frame Within a Frame. Use your surroundings to create a frame and frame your subject within it. This is a classic technique.

Week 30 - The Elements. Find inspiration in the elements of Earth, Fire, Wind, Rain, and Spirit.

Week 31 - Sky Overlay. Take an image with a bad sky and replace it in post. Let's work on those post processing skills.

Week 32 - Golden Hour. The legendary golden hour. The hour before sunset or the hour after sunrise. Use the amazing golden light to share a story.

Week 33 - Perspective. Use the relationships of the objects in your images to play with perspective.

Week 34 - Sparkle! Shoot anything that sparkles. Make it interesting

Week 35 - Full Edit. Take your most boring SOOC image and edit it to make it as good as you can. Show off your editing skills.

Week 36 - Light Painting. Use time to your advantage and take long 30 second shutters at night to paint light. Use street lights, car lights or plain old LED lights to make this happen.

Week 37 - Fantasy. Real life or just plain fantasy... The inspiration this week is fantasy.

Week 38 - Aging. It happens to everyone. Show off images that represent aging.

Week 39 - Golden Triangles. A diagonal line divides the frame from corner to corner, two more lines are added from the other corners, intersecting the diagonal line.

Week 40 - Weight or Mass. Heavy as a stone, light as a feather. Find inspiration and shoot an amazing photograph.

Week 41 - Rule of Space. Your subject should be facing the frame, walking into the frame, this keeps your subject "in" the frame and engaging with it. Give your subject room to move.

Week 42 - Rule of Odds. 3, 7, 9 or any odd number. Its an age old rule. Use this number of objects in your image.

Week 43 - Your Habits. Good or bad habits. Show them in your image this week.

Week 44 - Street Candid. Use candid street photography to show us what your city is all about.

Week 45 - Patterns. Patterns can bring a certain rhythm to your images. Show them off.

Week 46 - Low Key. The opposite of high key, keep your histogram to the left and show those shadows and create a mood.

Week 47 - Zoom Burst. Changing the focal length during long exposure can add movement to your composition, producing leading lines within your image.

Week 48 - Trash. Use trash as inspiration to create something memorable.

Week 49 - Humor. Make us laugh. Don't make it too cheesy.

Week 50 - Full Manual. Put your camera in full manual and play with your aperture, focal length and shutter speed to get creative.

Week 51 - Contrast. Use contrast to your advantage to make an interesting image: bright/dark, liquid/solid, hard/soft, delicate/brash.

Week 52 - Abandoned. Bring back the forgotten. Can you remind everyone why it should still be in our memories?

Link to https://dogwood.photography/52weekchallenge.html