This past week on Instagram I've been participating in a mini project hosted by We Are the Contributors. If you haven't visited their website or read about their projects you should go check them out. They're so creative and inspiring. For this mini project the goal was seven days of selfies and I remembered to do one every.single.day. That's not always easy! But they were a lot of fun to do and I'm glad I participated. These are my seven. I tried to do something a little different each day and there's only one full on, looking at the camera and smiling, selfie in there. Some days it was hard to come up with a different idea and some days they just appeared as if from nowhere. My favorite picture is the lips. That one was too fun. 

xo Sue

30 days? I know, how vain can a person be, right? A month ago the lovely ladies at A Beautiful Mess issued a challenge to do 30 days of self portraits and I couldn't resist- I wanted the challenge of 30 days of pictures without just looking at the camera and smiling. I was excited to get creative because who wants to see my face every single day? Not me. Sometimes I don't even look in the mirror. Yep, I'm that girl. But that's not the point. It's funny how Everly has changed in such a short time but I didn't really. Now the 30 days are up so I thought I'd share my month of vanity with you. Enjoy!

My favorites are 3, 15, 25, and 28. All pictures that include my sweet Ever. Coincidence? Probably not. She's pretty adorable. 

xo Sue

This year I'm working on my photography skills. I may or may not do anything with it beyond my own enjoyment, but I really want to push myself and get better. I also want to become best friends with my camera. Right now we get into fights. Mostly because it doesn't always do what I tell it to. This year that is going to change. My camera will behave! My camera will learn to listen to me. My camera will see the world the way I see it. There is beauty around every corner. And I will learn to communicate what I want with my camera.

To help myself achieve this goal of honing my photography skills, I've started a photo a day project. One picture every day for 365 days. Also, the photo must be taken with my DSLR (since that is the thing I'm trying to bond with), no iPhone photos allowed! This is going to be hard, I can already feel it. I'm only on day 8 and already I'm wondering if I'm going to make it. It's nearing the end of my day and I'm wondering what I should photograph. Some days it's easy. Some days my subject jumps into view and I know exactly what I want a picture of. Other days it's very hard, I have to actually look for things to take pictures of. But I suppose that's all part of the challenge.

If you want to follow along with my photography adventure I've started a separate blog for it, A Photo A Day (clever, I know), where I'll post the different things I find. So far, this has been my favorite picture I've taken. 34 weeks and counting, my dear bloggy friends!

If you're doing a 365 photo challenge this year PLEASE leave me a link in the comments. I would love to follow you through it! It will also help motivate me knowing I'm not the only one.

xo Sue

This week's challenge at Our Reflection was "The Sun." I try really hard to take a new picture every week, to go out looking for something to challenge myself. Laura & Megan issued the challenge and Japan responded by pouring rain all over us. NO sun for days. But today it came out and I grabbed my trusty camera. I took way too many shots but I got this little gem out of it, so I think it was worth the effort!

Go link up your own awesome pics of sunshine!

I know I'm late but I couldn't pick the theme this week and then not link up for the photo challenge at Our Reflection! I fully blame my migraine this week for not taking a better pic but this one will do for today. I love it even if no one else does! It was taken through my heart shaped Holga lens for my iPhone. I know, I'm obsessed with Holga. When it comes to "My Heart" these two are where it's at.

Snap some pics and link up your photos! If I can do it with a cell phone camera, you can do it too!

Thank you to all my lovely blogger friends for your comments on yesterday's post. Is there anything better than feeling the love from the blog world? And my sister who I talked about in the post wrote to me too. I guess to get emails from the family I need to write more "woe is me" posts! Haha but really it was wonderful to hear from her. It was wonderful to hear from all of you. I adore my bloggy friends.

This week's photo challenge at Our Reflection was "From a Low Angle" and that's a new one for me. I usually don't get down low when I'm taking my pics but I'll admit it was fun. It was right about the time everyone in Japan is driving home from work and I was lying flat on my stomach in the middle of the sidewalk pointing my camera up the little hill towards my precious puppy. I love that Twink is out of focus but you can still see him in the background.

If you love taking pictures as much as I do you should head over to Laura's blog and link up your low angle pics. I'm a total amateur but it's always fun to participate and see what everyone else came up with too.

When I read that the photo challenge this week at Our Reflection was water I knew exactly what I wanted to do. It's currently 5:30am here in Japan and I just finished photographing the sunrise over the Pacific Ocean. This also happens to be #92 on my 101 list. It was freezing outside (literally, my car told me it was -.6 Celsius when I got back, add the wind chill from the ocean and I'm crazy). It was absolutely perfect and one of my favorite hours I've spent in Japan. This was the moment when I could actually see the sun. There are no words to describe the way the light reflects off the haze and the water. It completely took my breath away.

I can also be found blogging here today.

And now I'm off to get some sleep.

If I can come down off my natural high.

It's time for another photo challenge link up at Our Reflection! I really had fun with this one. You're supposed to go out and take a new picture each week which adds a lot to the challenge. I've got a few pics in my library over the years that could be used for this one but since it's a new pic I spent the day with my camera around my neck and many experiments. There were a lot of terrible ones, a handful of good ones, and one or two great ones. At least I thought so. 

I need to give some background behind this photo. Remember how my husband spoiled me and bought me a camera for my birthday? Well he also humored me and bought the accessories I wanted to go along with it, and that included a Holga Lens Kit. If you've never seen or used a Holga camera, they are pretty awesome. They take old fashioned-looking pics and you can use color filters over the lens to give different looks. Technically the Holga is supposed to be a film camera but I still have film from our wedding that I have yet to get developed... mostly because I have no idea where to do that in Japan. So the chances of me getting these pics developed was less than zero. Thus, Aaron bought me the lenses for my DSLR instead. Easy solution, right? They don't auto-focus, which I love, but they're also hard to manual focus. Basically I come out with a lot of semi-blurry, colorful, artsy-looking pictures. Most are terrible (which is why digital is awesome) but some are pretty cool. And I hope the one I'm sharing today falls under the pretty cool column.

This pic was taken using my Holga standard lens and my red soft surround filter. I call it "A Shadow of Love." No seriously, I don't name my photographs... I just like to have fun. I literally had my camera in my hands all day trying to find a good shot. It's a lot harder than you think! Now go visit Laura and link up your own picture! 

I know, three posts in one day is a little excessive. I promise it won't become a typical thing! I got a new camera for my birthday and I decided it's the perfect time to join into the weekly photo challenge at Our Reflection (www.our-reflection.blogspot.com). Laura hosts a photo challenge every week and I'm never going to get better at photography if I don't practice. So this is me trying new things. I know my picture is fairly simple but this is the love of my life and I wanted to share him with you.