Genius Hour: Reflection

Well, here we are at the end of our project! It really did go by in a FLASH. Get it? This process was hard, but also so much fun. Which was the whole point! Thank goodness for YouTube because, without it, I honestly don't think I would have been able to learn everything that I needed to know. I still have a long way to go before I'm truly proficient with my camera and am able to edit professionally in Lightroom, but I'm so much more confident (and I'm pretty sure much better!) than I was before.

So here is my final picture for the project. I wanted to get a new "candid" family photo but it ended up more posed than I had planned. I needed to figure out where the best place would be to take the picture. I decided to set us up in my and my husband's bedroom because that way I could frame the picture the way I wanted and control the lighting. I edited both in color and black and white to see which style I liked better, and now I'm having a hard time deciding which one to frame. I'm happy to have captured this moment-in-time in a way that I'm proud of.

Black and White Edit

Color Edit

Original, Unedited

This was by far my favorite project for USF that we've done, and it also took the most time. But because I got to choose something that I was truly passionate about and motivated to learn more about, I tried my hardest and got so much out of it. I know that this experience would be so beneficial for my students - if only TIME wasn't in such short supply. I'd really love to try to carve out even just 10 minutes a day for my students to work on something they really want to pursue. This is something I'm going to try to work out for next year!

Genius Hour: Working Through the Process

This project has gone on long enough that it's starting to feel more like my normal routine. I'm looking for opportunities to take pictures and have my camera "at the ready" for whenever I might need it.

I've noticed that when I'm trying to learn something new on my own, I get frustrated if it doesn't click with me fast enough. I start to feel defeated because I don't have anyone readily available who I can ask questions to. I think I learn better in a group so I can listen to others and get clarification when I need it. 

I found some videos that were helpful because I learn best when I can see and hear what I'm trying to learn how to do. I'm the most successful and efficient with my learning when I focus on one small skill and try to learn about that so I don't get overwhelmed. This is especially applicable to Lightroom. There are soooo many tools and it's super intimidating to try to figure out what each of them does and how they all work together. So I'm just trying to work with one at a time and see where that gets me!
This week I worked with my remote timer since I'm going to need to use it for the "final picture" that I want to take for this project. I let my son push the button (which you can see him doing in the photo) but I do like how it turned out overall!

Genius Hour: Motivation

This week was hard to stay motivated, and I don't see it getting easier anytime soon! Life just kind of got in the way last week and I wasn't able to take photos and edit every day like I had planned on. Next Friday is the end of the trimester, so it will be assessments, grading, and report cards aaaaaall week. That means, to make up for the time lost during the week, I need to double-down on the weekends.
Last weekend we went outside to sled in our backyard (the ONE advantage of having a hill behind our house) and I took some photos of the kids just having a freaking blast. That's really been my primary motivation behind choosing photography for my project; capturing photos of my kids being kids.

It was really tricky taking these action photos in manual mode with the sun starting to go down. I had to keep readjusting my focus, ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. I think a couple of them turned out a bit blurry, but I love the candid poses that I got!
I decided that for my "final project" I want to try to take a candid-ish photo of my whole family (including myself) using my remote. I would love to have an updated, quality family photo of all of us and I think it's the right challenge level where, if I succeed, I'll be really proud of myself! Let's see how it goes...

Genius Hour: My Routine

Setting up my photography routine has been difficult and inconsistent. I'm sure everyone else can relate how challenging it is to add something new to your already packed schedule. Between schoolwork, running the kids around to activities and events, keeping up with my exercise routine, and just the everyday-life stuff like making dinner, helping with homework, etc., there is no. time. for something new. BUT I had to make time. So the 30 minutes that I gift myself after the kids go to bed is now going towards mastering my craft instead of drinking wine and watching "my shows." I have to admit, I'm sad about being behind on This Is Us. But now I can binge after this class is over, right??

On Sunday I took my daughter to her friend's pink princess birthday party and she had a blast. I took photos of the girls with props in front of a unicorn backdrop. It was actually a sunny day (the first time we'd seen the sun in about 2 weeks - darn Chicago winters!) and there were no curtains or blinds in the living room, so it was challenging to avoid shadows on the girls' faces. I don't want to post pictures of the other girls without their parents' permission, so I'll share the test photo that I took of my daughter while I was adjusting my ISO, shutter speed, and focus (don't I sound like a professional already??). I was easily able to shoot the photos in manual mode, which was my goal, because the girls actually did a great job of standing still for the mini photo shoot. However, if I had tried to take candids in manual, I imagine it would have been a lot more difficult.

Well, the big problem with choosing photography as my genius hour topic in winter is that there is veeeery little daylight to work with. Especially because my free time to work on this is at night after my kids go to bed. Something that I've found that works pretty well is to try to take photos as soon as I get home before I need to chauffeur my kids to their various activities, and then edit at night when I don't need the daylight. While my kids were eating one day, I snuck out to the lake in our backyard to take some pictures of the geese resting on the lake in the fog. What I was seeing with my eyes was beautiful, but every picture I took failed to capture what I was seeing in person. It was really frustrating.  I'm guessing it's because my camera lens wasn't able to zoom in enough, but I don't have an extra thousand dollars available for a new lens, so I'll have to push distance photography to the backburner for now.

Can you even see the geese?? Better try a magnifying glass.

So in summation, my routine isn't perfected yet, but I'm finding the time to research, learn, and practice. I'm excited to continue on my journey!

Genius Hour: My Sentence

I created this sentence to exude what I hope to become at the end of this project: She captured people’s love, laughter, and light through photographs.

The question is, how do I get there? A lot of skilled people are self-taught, but I learn better by asking questions and talking to people who are more experienced than I am. This week I decided to reach out to a professional photographer who lives a few cities away from me. We’re acquaintances online and we’ve talked quite a few times, so I felt comfortable asking her some questions about her journey with photography.

Ashley is a self-taught photographer whose business has boomed over the last couple of years. Photography is her full-time job (when she’s not taking care of her 3 boys under 5) and she’s extremely talented. Therefore, I’m going to embrace whatever advice she has to offer! She suggested that I take out my camera and just “play around with it” as much as I can. Try different lighting, various speeds, and get used to the manual settings. Regarding editing, she said that she watched LOTS of tutorials and videos in order to learn all of the Lightroom tools. And there are a toooon of tools. Thank goodness for YouTube, because there are thousands of videos explaining how to make the most of Lightroom without relying on presets.

This weekend we’re going to my friend’s daughter’s third birthday party (princess themed) and she asked me if I could bring my camera and take photos of the girls. Take professional-looking photos of a dozen toddlers zooming around in princess gowns? Sure! Sounds easy, right?? Well this will be the perfect way for me to launch my 30 minutes of daily photography practice. Wish me luck!

Ashley giving me advice on how to shoot the birthday party this weekend. I understand some of these words...

Genius Hour: Exploratory Experience

This week I spent a little bit of time with each of my choices. I have to admit, it was a lot of fun to devote some time to things that I'm interested in AND since it was homework, I had to do it. 

First I tried out embroidery. I've been a very amateur sewer for a few years now, so I made a stuffed animal for my son based on one of his favorite books, "Creepy Pair of Underwear" by Aaron Reynolds. There was minimal embroidery involved, just a few stitches for his face and ears, and I think it turned out pretty good for a first attempt! I started to look for inspiration for a more challenging embroidery design and found the very intricate ones to be pretty intimidating. Intimidating is fine, that's the point of this whole exercise, but it also seemed a bit tedious, which is not what I'm interested in pursuing at the moment. So embroidery is getting bumped to the back burner for now. 

Next, I watched this video tutorial for beginning knitters. I already know how to crochet and knitting doesn't seem too far off. It looks like it would be fun, but not as much of a challenge as I think this assignment warrants, so that's getting set aside for now, too. 

That left me with photography. I was really excited about this one. I pulled out my "fancy camera" and took some pictures of my daughter playing with her doctor tools. After watching several videos to learn about what the heck all of the buttons and dials on my camera even do, I had a vague understanding. Enough to get started at least. I took some photos in manual mode and, after finding one I was pretty happy with, I got to editing. I have Adobe Lightroom and have purchased lots of pretty presets to edit my pictures with literally one click, but I'm not supposed to be taking the easy way out. So I messed around with the Lightroom lighting and color tools until I ended up with a photo I liked. I can still see plenty I'd like to change about the picture, but I don't know how to do that. YET. I had so much fun taking these photos and I spent a loooong time in Lightoom editing. But I super enjoyed myself and was so excited that I got to call it homework!

SO as you probably guessed, I've decided to focus on photography. It makes me happy and it's something that I think will be fun, but with enough of a productive struggle to make it the perfect Genius Hour project.

Genius Hour: Topic Choosing

I have 3 young children and I teach (obviously) so I feel like my time is precious and in very short supply. There are so many things on my "What Would I Do if I Had All the Time in the World" list that I didn't even know where to begin to select my top 3. BUT, I did eventually manage to narrow it down. I am a very crafty person and once upon a time B.C. (before children) I did a ton of scrapbooking. I would completely lose track of time as hours passed while I cut, organized, taped, glued, and stickered. Therefore, all three of the activities that I'm considering are artistic.

One thing I've always wanted to learn how to do is knit. I'm so envious of people who can knit beautiful scarves, hats, and accessories to give as gifts that are even better than store quality. I've received knitted blankets as presents before and I treasure them. Making something by hand for someone else is such a thoughtful and generous gift. It's always been something I've wanted to learn how to do! Plus, from a completely selfish perspective, I've been wanting a "chunky knitted blanket" for years and I refuse to pay $200+ for one. So I'd love to knit my way into big, big savings.

Something else that's interested me for a long time is embroidery. Embroidery is such a useful skill when it comes to creating beautiful things. I've even seen artists embroider family portraits! We're taking our kids to Disney this summer for the first time, and I saw a lovely blanket that someone made by embroidering the autographs of all of the Disney characters that they met. I mean, how creative is that?? It would be such a wonderful way to preserve the memories made on such a special trip.

The last activity that I'm considering is photography. I've always loved taking pictures and photography has a special place in my heart because my grandmother was a professional photographer. I have a "professional grade" camera, but I really don't know how to use it. I would love to learn how to manually take photos and edit them myself (i.e. no auto mode and no editing presets!) Speaking from a sentimental mom perspective, time goes by so fast and I'd love to beautifully document our "everyday life" moments while my children are little.

So, next step: spend some time with each activity and choose my Genius Hour project. Wish me luck!