Week 32 of the photo a day challenge

Portraits week - I'd been looking forward to this week for ages! There was a twist to the Brief though, with a different type of portrait to be taken each day:

Sunday - Traditional portrait
Monday - Candid portrait
Tuesday - Self portrait
Wednesday - Lifestyle portrait
Thursday - Abstract portrait
Friday - Environmental portrait
Saturday - our own choice of style

wow I didn't know there were so many different styles of portrait, but what a great brief to really push us.

So starting with traditional, I opted for a portrait of my boy, since I take loads of photos of my daughter (she's a bit more photogenic and a lot more compliant). Traditional is usually head and shoulders with eyes about a third of the way up the frame. The eyes are focused on and catchlights (the spots of light in the eyes) make the picture come alive, I opted to bend the rules a little and get a shot of him lying down:



Monday was this candid shot of a lady asleep on the train, taken discreetly with my iPhone, I love the lighting and contrast of this shot:



For the self portrait shot on Tuesday, I spent ages Monday evening with my camera set up and the timer on trying to get a low key shot of my refection in the microwave door. I ended up not being happy with any of them and took this one on the train on Tuesday morning with my iphone front camera after an hour at the gym:



For my lifestyle portrait on Wednesday I wanted to capture the lifestyle of a commuter and this lady gave me the opportunity to demonstrate those extended office hours, where like so many, you work on the train too:



I actually used another self portrait for my abstract shot on Thursday, everybody said it looked like the girl from Blair Witch (minus the snot!):



For Friday's environmental portrait I took a picture of my commuter friend Nick, in 'our' environment - the train. I only know Nick from commuting, he's part of a small group who get on my train at the next stop and started talking to me because of the kids, when they used to commute to Leeds with me. We've all become good friends. On Friday it was only Nick though:



I found Saturday's a hard choice, I love portrait photography, I got it down to two and asked the photo group to help me choose, everyone who helped preferred this photo of Emily:



This was the other option, one of Archie:




I have loads of other portraits that either I couldn't use because I had taken them before this week or I just didn't use.

Here's one of my favourites of my brother:




And my friend's two gorgeous girls:







Emily wishing she could go in the pool:



And another random one of Emily:


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All images are owned by Nicola Dawes unless otherwise stated

Week 31 of the photo a day challenge

This week's theme was "leaves" with the main focus of the picture to be a single leaf.

We were away that weekend in the Lakes, so plenty of leaves!

Started the week with a leaf taken at the side of a lake on Sunday



On Monday I got this shot in the rain with my iPhone



On Tuesday I took a picture of one of the leaves of a house plant, it looks a bit like a tongue!



On Wednesday I got this photo of a leaf in some shallow water



Thursday's picture was snapped on my iPhone on my way home from work. A geranium leaf in one of the planters in Barnsley town centre.



On Friday, on the way home again, I noticed that there is a line of trees outside of Barnsley bus station. They were all at various stages of parchedness since they become less and less shaded from the buildings opposite. These were in the middle of the row



On Saturday I pushed the brief a little with this shot of an insect, there is a leaf in the background. I was taking a picture of some little violet flowers at the time when I noticed the insect




I had taken quite a few pics this week that didn't make it to the final 7, here's some of them:












One of our chilli plants:



And a play with the auto focus / exposure lock on my iPhone






- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
All images are owned by Nicola Dawes unless otherwise stated