I’ve always been one who likes a challenge…especially when it comes to challenging myself and my abilities. I do have a fault however, (who doesn’t, right?), where if I feel I am not good enough, I’ll stop and won’t push myself. Bad, I know. I give up rather than trying to improve. I guess it’s because I think if I am really good at something it will come easy.

Since becoming a stay at home mother I have pretty much lost all outlets of creativity. I used to write poetry all the time – that stopped when I met Mr. Magoo. Then I really got into counted cross stitch – I’ve stitched a ton of birth samplers, but none for my own children. Cross stitch was extremely challenging, as I would always try to finish a piece with no mistakes at all. Needless to say, I think just about every one that I stitched had some sort of imperfection – which no one else would notice, but I knew it was there. I still love cross stitch and poetry, but never have the time for them.

Enter our Nikon D40 that we purchased before the birth of Little Magoo. This camera has been a Godsend for me. At first, it was a way to get great photos of Little Magoo, but it has turned into something more for me. I’ve learned more over the months about how the camera works, composition, editing – you name it. I love how challenging this piece of equipment is and have really been improving on my photography skills over the moths as well.

I’d like to say I’m good at it and toot my own horn, but there are always others out there taking better and more amazing photos than myself. I get jealous thinking about the extra lenses and flashes they get to play with. Hopefully some day we’ll be able to afford a new lens.

To challenge myself, I have even toyed with the idea of breaking out Mr. Magoo’s old 35mm film camera – just to see how good a photo I could really take in one shot. The one thing digital allows you to do is, take as many photos as you need, until you see the right one – but it would be nice to perfect my skills to being accurate at least 99.9% of the time, which is the way you need to be with film.

Recently Pioneer Woman has been putting photography challenges on her blog and I have been working on them on my own at home – too worried I was not good enough to submit a photo in her group photo stream. Finally, yesterday, I submitted one. I guess you never know until you try. I suppose my odds are just as good as anyone else’s considering how subjective photography can be.

Here is the photo I submitted. The challenge was for rounded edged photos. I don’t know what it is, but it reminds me of The Wizard of Oz and the Yellow Brick Road. I titled it “not in kansas anymore”. I had added a slight edge burn and rounded the edges. The rest is straight out of camera (SOOC).

This one I didn’t enter, but thought was nice. I did use a slight texture and then rounded the edges. Nice and refreshing.

This one I created with a texture as well – wow. This one blows my mind. The raw gritty feel is just how I like it sometimes. It amazes me that a) I could take a photo this nice, now and b) I could transform it into something amazing.

Some challenges really make you feel good about yourself and how far you have come.

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