Then Lightning Struck

Our current photography assignment might be my favorite but most challenging assignment yet. It requires us to really think outside of the box. The assignment is "Self Portraits" but the challenge is to not include your face in the picture. The assignment is supposed to be 8 cohesive photos that express some aspect of yourself. Something in each photo needs to have a unifying theme.

Well, I am so awesome, which part of myself do I pick??

My gorgeous looks, my awesome body, my charm, my wit???

Enough, enough.

No really. It's tough. What part of me do I feel I can share in a series of pictures? Something that's intriguing enough and creative enough that when expressed in photos it is appealing to the human eye.

I'm loving and cherish friendships, but I was afraid going around and taking pictures of people in love or people with their friends was just too generic.

Then lightning struck. Exploring. Travel. Adventure.
WAHBAM!

I found an old suitcase at an antique mall and it is traveling all around with me. I find something inspiring and grab the suitcase and put it in the frame. I wanted to find things around St. Louis that have some sort of sentimental value or connection to places I have been or will be going hopefully in my life.

I just started yesterday but snapped a few pictures with the ole suitcase. Now these aren't the final edited versions of the pictures, just what I could pull together here at home.

Tonight we had a beautiful lightning storm. St. Louis hasn't really seen rain in awhile so it was quite welcomed. I decided to try my hand at capturing lightning, which in and of itself is very challenging. When it's so dark outside you really have to have the lowest aperture, mine was at a 3.5, the lowest it can go, and then you need a really slow shutter speed so you can allow whatever light there is in to the camera. The tricky thing about lightning is that it moves so dang fast so what would be ideal is to have a super super low aperture and a higher shutter speed, something like 1/400th of a second, rather than 1/3 of a second like I was shooting at. The only problem is that my camera only has so much potential at the moment. So I worked with what I could. I still caught some beautiful photos and can't complain about the nice evening I had out on the deck.

 

I love this photo in particular because it was actually relatively dark at the time I took this. I just love the soft glow of all of the street lights and the remaining sunlight in the sky.

 

See the lightning in the corner? GO ME!

 

I like it when lightning strikes.