D19: Are You Ready to Stand Out?

The lessons I’ve been learning from this 365 day photography challenge have been quite unexpected. While I expected to learn more about my camera, exposure, lighting, etc., I didn’t really plan to learn more about myself as a person and photographer.

Here are a few things I’ve learned…

• There are countless examples of standing out in nature that are truly stunning.
• If you’re willing to stand out, you will get noticed. If you get noticed, some people won’t be happy about it.
• I hold myself back because I don’t want to stand out. If I would get out of my own way, the possibilities are endless.
• I am my own worst enemy and sell myself too short (not meant arrogantly, just been told enough that it’s finally sinking in).

I’m going to let this image of the lone flower remind me of the beauty and power of standing out. What have you been learning from this challenge—about photography and you?

Manual: Page 33—Choosing the Focus Area. For Auto-Focus Area Mode, I use Single Area rather than Dynamic or Closest Subject. I’ve tried both of those, but I feel like I have less control over where I’m focusing. However, most often I’m using the manual button to choose where I want my focus to be. I’m not even sure this is the best way to do it, but it’s what has been working for me. Would be interesting to know if there is a better way to select focus. Any ideas?

Images: I attended a session by Zack Arias earlier this year for the PDN Virtual Tradeshow. The title was Creative Lighting and all the participants were able to download a PDF of the presentation. So, while driving back from Orlando today, I opened the file on my laptop and looked at Zack’s images. Always impressed by his work. Once I arrived home, I checked out his latest blog post which is about street photography. He has some great images and advice for capturing pictures of people on the street. Check it out.