Project 52: Shots 30 - 32

Speed (July 20, 2016)

As I started to write this post, over four years after I took the shot, I didn't remember why I was at Union Station with my camera in July of 2016. I had to search Los Angeles in my Google Photos in the hopes that I had taken some photos with my phone that would help me remember. Sure enough, Randy and I had gone there to watch The Grand Budapest Hotel on top of the Montalban Theater. 

Based on some long exposure shots I took about a year before, I knew that when I shot speed for this challenge, I wanted to do it with a long exposure. This shot may be more motion than speed, but if you've ever been to Union Station, you know that most people there are driven to catch something--some more so than others. If I could go back in time, I would have composed my shot better in order to have the vanishing point be in the actual center. Or I would have paid more attention to that in the editing and cropped it better. At any rate, it just feels good to be working on this project again . . .

A Favorite Element of Your City (July 20, 2016)

When I discovered these shots sitting neatly labeled in my drafts, I knew instantly that this wasn't Rancho Cucamonga. Partly because of the shots that were before and after it, but mostly because Los Angeles remains one of my favorite cities even though I haven't lived there in nearly 20 years. Palm trees against a blue sky are so evocative of Southern California and I love So Cal.

I'm sure I looked like a tourist standing on the corner of Hollywood and Highland to get this shot, but I'm really glad I did because I love that blue sky. When I first learned to shoot in manual, someone told me to make sure that the sky was blue in my shots because no amount of editing could ever bring that back. I have never forgotten that. I keep that tip in mind when shooting outside, and I'm thrilled to see that has paid off. I love the ombre in this shot! Even if I did something in Lightroom to enhance it, the blue sky was there to begin with and I captured it.  

Pattern (July 20, 2016)

Who looks up while "speeding" through Union Station? Apparently, I do. I'm glad I did because I love this photo. I love how I composed (or edited?) it so that everything seems to radiate outward and upward. I love the different lengths of the shapes. I even love how the light decreases as the pattern radiates out. This shot has since become part of my digital footprint. I used Adobe Spark to make it into a header graphic for my professional Twitter account. 

In November of 2015, I bought a set of gallery frames to hang on the wall by my stairs in my condo. It came with super artistic black and white photos, and I remember thinking initially that I would never be able to fill them with photos of my own like that. About two weeks, prior to shooting this, I finally hung some of my own photos in there. I'm proud to say that one of them was from this project and the others were just from other day trips to LA. Most of those have been replaced with family photos (which now need to be updated since our family has grown) but we still have some of the artistic stock photos in two of the frames that are hanging at the end of the hall. As I look back at this photo and some of the others that I have shot, I finally feel like I'm capable of shooting artistic photos of my own.  

Project 52 Work In Progress

 I started my Project 52 back in 2016. As I reflect on when and why I started it and the ways I made it work, I'm excited to get back to it even if it is almost four (4) years later. A lot has changed in my life: I got engaged, sold my condo, moved, got married twice, and had a baby. If you had told me back in 2016 or even 2017, that my camera would sit in my bag for most of these big changes, I probably would have been a little sad and disappointed that I hadn't captured those moments. 

The 2020 me is okay with it though. My self-talk has gotten a lot nicer and I've started to meet and accept myself where I am in so many ways. That is not to say that I won't change anymore. Becoming a wife (again) and a bonus mother changed what I wanted for the future. Progressing through pregnancy and becoming a mother (again) reshaped my life in ways I never imagined for myself. 

As my baby approaches his first birthday and 2020 comes to a maddeningly slow close, I'm hoping to finish this challenge. I am neither the same person nor photographer that I was when I started this project and that's okay.