Another month has come and gone and with it another Challenge with my Clickin Mom's photo group.  This months challenge was a fun creative exercise!  We focused on motion blur; it's a tough technique that requires a lot of practice to get sharp images.  Some of the results I got are definitely far from perfect but I find that I love them anyway for the dreamlike feeling of them.  I was really loving black and white processing on these images as it really emphasized the streaks of light and the blurring. I can't wait to see what the other ladies in my group have to show.  You can follow the link at the bottom of the post to see what the amazing Joanna has been up to!

Its time for another Monthly Challenge with my Clickin Mom's group.  This month was all about shooting with a shallow depth of field in mind.   So in order for this months challenge to make sense for the non-photographers that might be reading I am going to break out some wikipedia definitions for you. Depth of field (DOF) is "the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image" and "a small DOF may be more effective in emphasizing the subject while de-emphasizing the foreground and background".

I love to take pictures with a shallow depth of field!  It can create the most beautiful bokeh or blur surrounding your subject and helps you to focus on a specific thing.  This past month was a whirlwind for our family so I found myself once again taking pictures of the things that matter the most to me.  These pictures don't have an extremely shallow DOF--my pictures from last months challenge are actually a better example of that--but I think they show how a small DOF can create beautiful portraits.

Please click here to take a look at what Rhonda created this month with a shallow depth of field!

The challenge this month with my Clickin Mom's group was Beautiful Ugly.  I love the concept of searching for the beautiful in the ugly.  To me that is how we should try to approach life--by searching for the good or beautiful in our lives, especially in the ugly or hard times.  It is also amazing to me the beauty that can be found with photography just by changing your lighting, perspective, and so on.  This is such a great exercise to stretch your creativity!

So the month of May brought a lot of creatures in to our lives!  My daughter is obsessed with animals right now and somehow this months challenge ended up revolving around my daughters little creature friends.   She and I would like to share with you Sparkles the millipede and company!

Now please click here and head on over and see what Katie has been photographing this past month!

March was all about interesting perspectives for my Clickin Mom's monthly challenge group.  I had fun taking a lot of wide-angle shots and using leading lines for this exercise.  Each of these challenges helps me to be a little more creative with my photography and more motivated to try new things! 

I was going over some old photographs from a trip to Paris and this image really stood out to me with its unique perspective and graphic lines. 

Now head over to Rhonda's site to see what interesting perspectives she has to share this month!

So there has been a lot of battles at our house these days . . . a battle of the wills.  The baby of the family does not want to be a baby anymore and she is quite vocal about what she wants and most of all that she wants to do it.  It is a juggling act of letting her have her freedom and independence and not giving into her all the time in fear of her tantrums.  Each day I am attempting to balance the opportunities I have to teach my children and the opportunities they have to learn from their own experiences.  Each day I am learning that parenthood is infinitely more complex than I anticipated!