Dogwood Week 3 - Artistic: Red

I don't know if it is because it was the dead of winter and everything seems void of colour, but I found this challenge a tad difficult. The focus of photo or video was to feature the colour red. I had shot a few different things but none of them felt right. Thankfully I had shot for the previous challenge which was a traditional landscape some video of the flags blowing around outside my work.

I've decided that I can't leave these challenges until the week of anymore. I need to work on three at a time and give myself some more room to create something more artistic. If anything, the challenge is living up to its name, as it is teaching me a few lessons already and I'm making some improvements.

Landscape: Traditional - 52 Week Photo Challenge

The challenge this week was to get capture a traditional landscape photograph. Part of the Dogwood Photography's encouragement for this challenge was to 'not forget the sky', which has been very hard to do as it has been dropping lots and lots of snow on us.

As my world this week is in shades of white, I decided to give my photo the black and white treatment. This is a photo of the Grand River in Kitchener, Ontario taken around noon inbetween snow squalls.

Here is a breakdown of the camera settings:
Camera - Nikon D610
Lens - 24-85mm f/3.5
ISO - 400
Exposure - 1/500 sec at f/ 11
Flash - Did not fire

Follow me on Instagram - @steveccoleman

52 Week Photography Challenge - Week 1

Dogwood Photography, out of North Carolina, have come up with an awesome 52 week photography challenge for 2016. This seemed like a great opportunity to, in their words, push my photography to the next level. I'm not a professional by any means but I do like exploring the world from behind the camera.

I plan to take a videography perspective with the challenges as much as possible as that is where my personal interest lies. This is going to be great! I'm really looking forward to participating in this 52 week challenge and watching my skills improve and creating something unique and new to share with the world.

Here is my Week 1 Post - A Self Portrait


Here is a breakdown of the camera settings:
Camera - Nikon D610
Lens - 50.0mm f/1.8
ISO - 400
Exposure - 1/60sec at f/1.8
Flash - Did fire

Learn more about the challenge here: http://dogwood.photography/52weekchallenge.html

Programming Passion

"I’d rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate"
– George Burns

This past Thursday and Friday I spent a large part of my work day working with HTML and CSS code. There were two projects, one an email and the other a landing page (web page), both of which were created to be responsive. It was familiar territory but I was pushing my skills a little further which was frustrating at times but it was equally the highlight of my day.

It is always interesting how I always gravitate to the programming side of my job. Thursday night I found myself thinking about what I could do to improve the code, especially in terms of making it repeatable for other projects. I love it when that happens (thinking about work); it's a clear sign that I am feeling passionate about the work I'm doing.

It would be awesome if everyday could feel like that. Then again, why can't it. Ultimately it comes down to yourself to peruse the things that make you feel passionate. As long as you can sneak it in everyday, it helps make the other parts of your job more digestible. That is my plan at least.

How do you keep the passion alive for the work you do?