I take on-line photography courses.  I have for a couple of years now and I watch at least one lesson a day sometimes many more.  One of my favorite instructors is Ben Long.  I’m taking his “Foundations in Composition” class now and one of the things he suggest is that if you find yourself in a creative funk consider three on-going projects.  Shoot your city, your neighborhood, and your street.

So yesterday after wasting the better part of the day doing pretty much nothing I decided to go for a walk around our neighborhood with camera in hand.  Part of my neighborhood also includes an elementary and middle school.  So I decided to walk over to the school grounds (which also has a pond) and see what was doing there.

As I started down the path I noticed the moon rising from the Northwest.  I liked how there was a wisp of a cloud on top of the large moon and even though I didn’t have a long lens I decided to take the shot.

The aforementioned pond was frozen over and was pretty much non descript.  There was so little contrast between the dark frozen water and the colorless ground that I had trouble focusing the camera.  I shot 20 images of the pond from a variety of angles but alas nothing worth showing.

Then there was this fire hydrant.  Common enough on about any street corner but the thing that caught my eye with this one was the rust that encompassed the hydrant.  The fact that it wasn’t on a street corner but in the middle of a field and it just looked “well” interesting.

I came around one of the buildings looking for architectural designs, converging lines, rule of thirds, all the technical terms from Ben Long’s course and this is what I saw.   More than likely the work of a young elementary student, but someone had taken some pieces of mud and wrote simply “Hey.”  When I looked at it through the viewfinder I like what I saw so I made the image.

So I got a little exercise, looked at some new things from a different perspective, and was able to capture some images.  I’d say my walk around the neighborhood was a success.

Enjoy your Monday and the workweek.  Thank you for stopping by and be careful.