Its the Simple Things

I started a new job in early December. It was a big change for me but something I needed to do. I've never been good with big, wholesale changes but I'm getting better at it.

Interestingly enough, my career change was one of the two things that led me to start this blog. My former job required a lot of writing; product/website content, communications with factories, and social media generation. Not having some of those requirements in my new job meant that I needed a new outlet for writing. I had a void to fill.

I hadn't given much thought to writing a new blog until Christmas day, when the other thing happened that put it all together for me. My niece, Amanda, has a great eye for composition and has always wanted a DSLR. Every time she comes over one of my cameras ends up in hands and she takes some great, spontaneous shots of things in my house that I see everyday. But yet they look totally different when someone else takes an image of them with new perspective.....

For Christmas this year we gave her a D5100 DSLR with the 18-55mm kit lens. She was super excited and I was excited to go over the camera with her, to show her the first few things she needed to know to be up and running with it. It was during that discussion that I realized that I really enjoyed sharing what I know (which is very little, trust me!) about photography. And talking/writing about it gets me excited to go out and take more photos....so it was a no-brainer that this blog became one of my resolutions for 2015.

My new office has a lot of employee artwork hanging on the walls, and last month they put out a call for art with the theme of "black and white". Not wanting to just simply submit one of my many black&white landscape images, I had to come up with something different. So I put myself in Amanda's shoes and set up a shot in the kitchen early this morning with a few common everyday objects: a white ceramic coffee mug, a black granite counter, and a small flashlight with a thin piece of cloth to act as a diffuser. I wanted to take a different look at something I see or use everyday.

Shot info: Nikon D7100 w/16.0-85.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 lens at 62.0 mm, ƒ/5.3, 1/25 second exposure at ISO1600.

I love the simplicity of using an everyday object with some added drama. I don't care whether or not this ends up as part of the current artwork in my office; I just enjoyed taking the shot. It is truly the simple things!