Tag: camera

The Importance of Friends and achieving creative goals

For years I had always wanted to enter the Oregon State Fair photo contest. I had been entering the Lane County Fair photo contest for several years and the competition was STIFF !!! I think the best I ever got was honorable mention. I figured that you had to win at the county fair level to enter the State fair level. Before I achieved any coveted awards I moved to Central Oregon and Deschutes County. My first summer I went to the county fair and …. was disappointed at the quality of the photo displays. I could not say I was disappointed at the photos because all I saw was a jumble of poorly displayed 4×6 photos on construction paper with an occasional 5×7 and 8×10 photos thrown in the mix. I didn’t enter my photos in the next years photo contest…. Truthfully my photography had also taken a hit with lack of funds, a new hobby Quilting, and a new interest Volunteer fire fighter…. Photography was not on my radar anymore. Several years later I had moved into Fire Prevention and volunteered at the county fair at the new Fair Grounds…. One of the forest service Fire Prevention officers and my friend Karla, said lets go look at the displays. We wandered around and eventually came to the photo displays. My impression of them was similar to my first impression. Very jumbled, but slightly better at least the 4×6 on construction paper were gone…. Later that year our prevention co-op worked at the state fair and again Karla said let’s go look at the displays. What a Big Difference everything was neat and organized and while I don’t remember much, I remember looking at the photographs and enjoying walking around the room looking at them. One photograph still stands out to this day almost 30 years later…. A simple Black and White of a Calla Lily on a black background and framed with a black mat. Karla always said you can do that….. I will always miss her, but I still hear her encouraging me with that little chuckle she had…. You can do it!!!!
Several years later the Volunteer Firefighter Fire Prevention officer is no longer, and the quilting has been put on the backburner (maybe) but the Photography has come back strong with new equipment that achieves my photo desires. I had joined a group of photographers online and we participated in a 52-week photo challenge…. by year 3 I had made many photographer friends, and each challenge was a contest to see how I could do better than the year before or even improve on another photographer’s idea….

This was one of my favorite photos. It was a layering technique that I had planned out. I knew that this prescribed burn was going to happen, near my home and when they lit up the fire, I was able to take a photo of the smoke column rising over North Sister, from the front of my house. Later in the day I went down to the fire and photographed it from the road while the wildland firefighters were working on the mop up… I used the photos for two different weekly competitions. I was encouraged by Neil, Maryanne, Nicole, Jim, David….. and many other people in the group… While I was active in the photo challenge, I looked up what it would take to enter the Deschutes Co. Fair and the Oregon State Fair. I found the county fair was a jumble but easy to understand, with many different categories. Way too many categories…. The State fair I saw 4 categories and one special category. I really didn’t understand what they wanted….. So I did nothing. My printer had run out of ink during the covid pandemic and when I did get new ink it would not work with my laptop or my new desktop computer. They were not communicating.
Over time my interest in the 52 week contest had waned and many of my biggest supporters had also lost interest. I looked for a different social atmosphere and a way to get exercise…. I joined a swimming pool class that looked fun and after about a year was invited to join a group of ladies called the Pool Pals. A variety of ladies with a wide variety of experiences. Also, we all had similar political interest…. When the current president was elected there was a lot of shock and disbelief…. There are many different levels of activism within this group of ladies, and I admit I am one of the lowest …. I really don’t like to go to rallies…. I chose to use my camera as my protest…. I also like to go hiking or even walking, so 4 of us gelled and started hiking at least when we could… Thanks for those hikes, Susan H, Robin, and Geri…. for me those hikes are a support that say, “You can do this”…. A quiet affirmation that getting out and taking photos, walking and talking with friends is a powerful thing…

I bought a Constitution of the United States booklet and the parchment paper style printed documents that included The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights….
Adding a faded flag that I had hung during COVID pandemic. I photographed them, I even had notecards made from them. I wanted to submit that original photograph to one of the fairs but for the county fair I needed to get my photo printer working, for the State fair I needed to decide on what I was going to submit and it had to be done in by July 20th. Then I had to make sure I could print them. I missed the deadline for the county because I hit a snag with the printer. I had it working a couple days later. I did get the 3 photographs that I had chosen to enter the State Fair in. I waited until the last day and just before I was ready to submit I rephotographed the flag constitution photo without the booklet.
In my mind I could hear the encouragement of the many friends, saying ” You can do this”,” Just Do It”,” I dare Ya…..” I think the last phrase is my Friend Lynne, I don’t think she actually said it, but she has that twinkle in her persona that could have…
This is a long post, and you will notice there are only 3 photos. These are the photos I submitted to the Oregon State Fair in my first ever entry…. The first photo did not get accepted; I knew that the competition for that entry would be stiff… But it represents to me the values of my friendships and that each of my friends, have provided me with the words on those glass beads.
The other two, the layered wildland fire fighters, and the constitution flag shots were accepted but did not win any awards. They do say to me that I can do it… and that I can “Up my game” in the photography genre.
It is to all of my friends I send up a special THANK YOU for all the positive you provide me and the inspiration you provide in my journey to be creative.
Thanks to the ladies of Cinco’s who have been friends for more than 20 years, Lynne, Marcia, Yetta and Susan T. always look forward to our morning posts on FB.
Thanks to Susan T who has been willing to go with me to Salem several trips in just a few weeks (still have one more to go). I only got lost a few times each trip.
Special thanks to Maureen and Vicky for making an effort to go to the state fair on the day that Susan and I went and met up with us in the photo area also the rest stop….. You really made my day on that rainy day….. I am not sure the photo section could recover from some of the current pool class hijinks…. at least we didn’t hold up the flow…
And Robin I am still working on that Question ” What if I ???? for Next years Entries….

Collections. How did I get so many?

For the last post I shot this photo with some of my glass bottles, to go with the new ones I had purchased, the day before. I was looking for different but similar shapes. That is when I realized that I have a lot of glass bottles, and a lot of other things, too. These things were purchased because I liked them and I wanted to use them as photo subjects. I don’t collect anything. I don’t say “Ohhh…, That is a glass bottle I have to add that to my collection.” I say ” Ohh! How would that look to photograph with a sunflower in it? or that is an interesting shape vase, it would look so Cool with….” or “That is the most funky buffalo planter and he needs to be photographed with the trolls surrounded by daisies…” It is not until I start putting things together that I realize that I have a collection, or two, or ten, or???
During this photo shoot an idea for a new blog post was inspired, I cleared off my photo table and started grabbing glass bottles, not the jars just bottles…

This is a pretty good representation of my bottle collection that is usually spread all over my house and photo area. It is not the whole collection, and I admit some of them I have had more than 20 years others just a few days. While it was fun to find these bottles, it quickly became boring to photograph them by themselves. I had so many ideas for things that I had collected and if I tried to photograph each group of things individually, I could be photographing for days….
I decided to add multiple collections in one photo. A lot more fun to make it interesting.

My first idea was using the fake flowers, and then adding some of my vases, not just the ceramic vases but some of the pottery vases as well. 3 collections in one shoot.

I remembered the shot of the feathers and natural forest and decided to recreate that again. Every time I photograph them it is different. I looked at the small rocks and crystals and thought…. I have many collections of big rocks in my yard. All of which have been used in various photo ideas including my coffee cup and thermos collections

Again, a small sampling of all 3 different items, but the boulders are hard to move so you have to work with them where they are…. all over the place….
These rocks have been good backdrops for the troll family and their pet lizards and sometimes if I am lucky, I can catch a real lizard.

I admit the troll family and their pet lizards have been of my most favorite subjects to photograph. They inspire my sense of whimsy and they are quite portable…. I can take them most places, simply tucking them into a backpack, tote, or basket and placing them wherever I think I can get a fun photo…
Each photo idea that was photographed inspired another idea and all were taken within a 3- or 4-day period of time. Truth is I would come up with a new idea and go out and shoot it then come back in and deal with the photos. The next day I would start the process over again. Adjusting this, tweaking that.

Thinking I have more backgrounds and cloths that could be used but I have never used them, wanting to do something with my collection of string, adding a paperweight and a brown glass globe, a couple strings of faux pearls some shiny beads, marbles, small Christmas ornaments and glass stones. I played with the idea of circles…. The balls of string were made by me as a rehabilitation exercise for my left wrist, that I had broken one summer.

I have taken a stash of 2x4s and 2×6 scraps and painted them some of my favorite colors or just white simply to use as photo props. Those were inspired by some wooden cubes that I picked up at a business closing sale. Most of the time they are under a cloth giving me elevation in my photos but what better way to use that collection of props than to show off my collection of broken of old cameras and lenses. All of these cameras except for the two Polaroid cameras, I have used in my photography journey and with the exception of a couple of them most of them are just worn out from use. Lots of use. I have a pretty good collection of photographs, Too….

Looking back series Framing Challenge.

Looking back at my work this last few days and realizing how much the 52 week challenge allowed me to grow…. Actually forced me to grow. I learned how to process the photos and actually use my processing program to make them shine. I learned how to run with an idea that maybe one of the other photographers suggested. I learned how to be a bit more patient
I admit this subject originally didn’t inspire me in 2022, and I had a hard time getting into framing.

So I went for the easy classic find a subject and frame it with some trees. I took the photos and moved on to something else. I didn’t do anything special with them I just posted them. I didn’t organize them in files other than the date I photographed them on. I hadn’t made friends in the group yet and at this point there were about 20 active photographers out of 100 who signed up. So the little sideline comments that spark creativity were not happening…. “There was Great Photo… Do you live near there?” It took a while for things to click with everybody. Trying to go back to that years challenge is hard I actually had to figure approximately what date /week the framing challenge was on and pick a couple photos that I thought I might have posted. They were terrible. I wasn’t using my processing program to clean them up with a nice sharper image. I didn’t remove or crop anything. for this post I did run them through the processing program. but first I had to copy them from the External Hard drive to the laptop, then into the processing program, then file them, download them onto a thumb drive and then put them into the file I have on the new computer. Remember that patience I mentioned? I used quite a bit of it this morning trying to find these photos.
And so we move on to the second year of the challenge 2023

By 2023 several of the photographers had clicked and we were inspiring each other. by this time I had set up a small table studio on my back deck and would go out into the cold set something up then pop back into the warm house to see what I had, and posted what I liked the best. The next day I came up with another idea and spent the morning photographing it, and posting my favorite from that shoot.

by day 3 of the week I was thinking of all the different ways I could photograph framing

and because I was now friends with the 15 or 20 photographers left in the challenge I could interject my sense of humor, wanting to know who put a rubber ducky in my cup of coffee… there were lots of side challenges going on and we crashed the site a few time.
The challenge was revived again for 2024 and the same photographers joined again.

This time because I had already done the challenge for two years. I was able to anticipate the challenge, I had been out thrift shopping and looking for things I could photograph for this challenge. the frame and the fake flowers were additions to my photo prop selection.

These swans were also a thrift store purchase that I thought I could use in symmetry challenge but liked so much I used them for framing.
By day three of that week I noticed the mountains framed by the clouds and fog and submitted that as well to the challenge.

Moving on to 2025, I was challenging myself to find a way to make a creative statement by using the processing and editing programs, include my sense of humor and some of the past ideas thrown out by the 5 or so members of the group that had a similar sense of humor.

At one point we had a frog theme going on during one of the challenge years, I had picked up this frog and this frame in my thrifting and wanted to make something with them.


The trolls were now being featured in my challenge shots as well as the dinosaurs.

although this shot didn’t make it into the final collage.
The question in my mind was how to make these three shots work in one shot that featured framing?

A simple shot of the frame on a white fleece background.
resize the photos of the frogs trolls and dino’s and paste then into the frame shot.


Then post those three shots onto the white fleece background

And crop.
So what started out as a challenge that I wasn’t interested in, in 2022 became one of my most favorite challenges.

My Original Plan for this Blog…

The purpose of this blog is to share my work. It is a many pronged process where I plan on sharing my hiking adventures, my photography visions while out and about, my creations in my little photo studio, and the notecards I had made several years back when I was planning on retiring from retail. It is a way to keep my photography going and to keep me going. And hopefully a way to sell my notecards, on eBay.

It starts with the camera a simple tool used to record things around me in this world. I started with a simple to use manual camera, as my experience grew, I went up to the much larger and clunky 6×7 camera to supplement the much smaller 35mm SLR camera. Then I quit for 20 + years. I got too busy.
My photo journey started again when I got a simple digital SLR 35mm camera, and on my days off from work going hiking with my German Shephard.

That simple digital camera only survived 2 hikes. It was too simple, I couldn’t use my many, much loved vintage lenses, and I accidently spilled some Gatorade on it, short circuiting the electronics. But I was hooked on photography again. I bought another used digital camera that was more advanced. I photographed anything and everything to share on Facebook. A power outage was an opportunity to get out and take photos of my dilemma

After a couple years I decided to step up my game and I had some notecards of my favorite shots made. I knew that I would be retiring from retail soon and wanted to have an avenue to support myself.

I had a website created and hoped to blog and sell my photo notecards maybe even my photographs. I left my retail job a couple of years earlier than I had planned. It opened me up to explore and enjoy. Everything was paid for, and I didn’t owe anybody for my work. It was freeing…. but my cards were not selling on eBay, or Etsy, or even on my website. I heard from many people Why should I buy notecards when I can use e-mail or Facebook? My website got hacked and I was constantly removing scams, I had pulled my notecards from eBay and Etsy. Tried relisting them again and nothing was selling. I became frustrated and angry, and the blog was reflecting that. Then Covid hit. I let the blog go because I didn’t feel it was doing what I needed.
I was following a photographer whose books I had read, and in one of his articles he mentioned another photographer that was a local to Oregon. I soon started following her and at the end of covid she offered to Do a 52 week photo challenge. I jumped on it and did some of my best most creative work over the next 4 years… I also wore out 5 cameras. Pretty easy to do when you are trying to come up with new ideas for the weekly challenge, and there are no limits… taking 100 photos a day was not unusual. I put together a small photo studio on my back deck where it was protected from the weather in the winter. If I had an idea, I grabbed the camera and started putting it together…. It didn’t matter that it was 25 degrees outside or 85 degrees outside…. While working on the challenge I ran across this troll doll with pink hair and he became a major influence on my photographs and the challenges.

Meet Pinx whom I have mentioned in the earlier blogs as my alter ego.

After a while there were 3 Trolls

and a few plastic dinosaurs they called lizards.
And Now

there are 8 of them and a whole bunch of dinosaur lizards

My whimsical side has evolved and maybe, new plans for notecards. But first I need to sell the older note cards, and the two new notecards I had printed this last summer.

So if you are interested in my notecards you can find them on eBay at deannedementphotography

And Thank You for taking the time to read my post.
Deanne