5 in 5 - January 2017 - Happy New Year!!

Welcome to '5 in 5' where on the 5th of

each month I post 5 photos that I have

taken in 5 minutes.

A very happy new year to you!  I hope you enjoyed the festive season and that your year will be especially good.

Did you have any nice surprises?

My lovely husband bought me a new camera, so unwrapping that on Christmas day was exciting. I have thought about buying a new camera for a good while as my old faithful was bought in 2008 and is looking a bit tired now. I am sure the images are not quite as sharp and technology moves on, but there are so many cameras to choose from so it was difficult to choose a replacement. In the end I chose to stick with Lumix because I have always been happy with my camera and the reviews of the newer version were pretty impressive.

To go with the camera my son bought me a book that I wanted: 'Adventures in Seeing' by Kim Manley Ort. Have you heard about it? 

The book is accompanied by a Facebook group where you can work through the book with others. I look forward to doing this.

I started the 5 in 5 photo challenge to help me pause and focus on taking photos - the 5 minute time frame helped me to see things differently, to challenge myself in different light or to take interesting photos of the mundane. But sometimes I get carried away in the excitement of the moment, or am rushed and don't pause to really connect with the photo I am taking. So I look forward to doing this more this year, and my plan is to take less photos. If you read my last two posts on 'Time to Photo Prune and Propogate' and 'It's only stuff', you will know that I am trying to regain control of my photos and to be more organised in future.  As well as saving to the cloud, today I backed my photos onto an external hard drive: over 57,000 of them. I am sure feeling overwhelmed takes away the sparkle, so I am starting the year with a contemplative approach to taking photos and trying to find the connection I once felt. I hope '5 in 5' and the new book will help me.

My new camera has some creative settings so I thought I would play with these as I celebrated the New Year watching fireworks. I didn't have to go far as I was watching on TV, cosy on my sofa in the warm! So here are my 5 photos this month, taken in 5 minutes, and it proves you don't have to go far!

 

I might keep some of these photos as textures. I used to enjoy playing with Photoshop and creating layers but I haven't done this for a long time.  Now I have forgotten how to, and so the learning starts all over again. My interest has returned because I wanted to order a photo canvas as a Christmas present. But my picture was spoilt by an ugly plastic bottle in view, so I decided to try and remove it. After a few fumbles I picked a book off my shelf - Photoshop for Dummies - and within a few minutes I had done it! This has inspired me to get back to playing with my photos because while I was at university digital creativity kept me sane and happy. Once I had time and opportunity to get my art materials out again I forgot about Photoshop. But I love experimenting and creating different effects so it's time to get the book out again and relearn. But first I will finish deleting and organising photos I already have. That makes sense, doesn't it? 

What about you?  Do you have plans or ideas for what you want to do this year? I'd love to hear about them.

And if you are inspired to pick up your camera and join in with this challenge it would be lovely to have your company.  

Here is the plan, and there are more details here. 

1.  Choose a location.

2.  Have your camera ready.

3.  Set a timer for 5 minutes (I use my mobile phone).

4.  Take as many photos you can until the time is up.

5.  Choose 5 photos to download and share by using the link tool below.

                              You have until the 25th of the month to add your photos.

A big thank you to everyone who has taken part over the past year. Some of you have become friends and regular contributors, I really value this. I appreciate not everyone wants to join in with the photo challenge and that's okay, because visitors are very welcome too! So thank you for popping by and feel welcome to leave a comment or link with 5 photos, and I will see you back here next month!