Day 1: The Portal
For the portal image, I thought of how going out a door is basically the same as going into another world. You can travel from a warm, light place into a cold, dark place with one step. I used a doggy door instead of a regular door because I thought it would be more visually interesting.
Day 2: The Beast
The first thing I thought of when I heard "The Beast" was my dogs. I wanted it to seem like they were attacking so they would be more like monsters which was hard because they're too nice :) Still, I held cheese in front of me and tried to get them opening their mouths. The closest I got was Pablo baring his teeth.
Day 3: Lost you
I couldn't think of much else to do for this prompt besides losing an object. A common place to lose something is under you couch, so I pretended to be trying to get something back out from under the couch.
Day 4: Facing The Beast
Because for The Beast prompt I used my dogs as 'beasts' I imagined facing them as fighting. I knew we had boxing gloves and thought this would be an obvious and visually nice way to embody fighting.
Day 5: The Thaw
I noticed there was lots of melting snow dripping off of my roof and thought it was a good chance to take a picture for 'The Thaw.' I focused the photo on the sun because of its heat, which put a harsh shadow on me and also showed the watery snow in the back. I then edited the photo to look really soft and warm, which I think gave it a feeling of thawing.
Day 6: Find Me
For this prompt I tried to take a picture from under the couch looking at me, but it was too dark and using my phone or the flash only darkened me more and lightened the bottom of the couch. Instead I just thought of some weird game of hide and seek where I was hiding in the fridge. I made it darker and green so it would look like night vision. I also cropped it to try to make myself in one of the corners to follow the rule of thirds.
Day 7: 7 Seconds
One of the most common appearances of seven seconds in my daily life is watching the microwave tick down for the food to be ready. I tried to capture this experience and made the shutter speed slow on the camera and shook my hands to create blur and show my excitement. To keep the microwave on seven seconds I had to have it turned off, so I edited its window to make it look like it was still on. This was the first time I used a tripod.
Day 8: PRisoner
I imagined a prisoner behind bars, so I used my dog's crate to look similar to a cell. I darkened the saturation and vibrance and added a vignette to create a dark/depressing mood.
Day 9: Like Stardust Waits . . .
For this picture I just imagined that the snow was stardust -- it falls from the stars and dusts the ground. So I tilted the camera up to focus on the snow and where it was coming from, and pointed up as well.
Day 10: ON the Evening Sky
I knew there were good sunsets near my house so I waited until evening and took a picture of the 'evening sky.' Because the photo was going to be focused on the sky I thought I should silhouette myself. I made the shutter speed fast and tried to make the camera focus on the sky so that I would be silhouetted. Then I tried to make my silhouette as interesting as I could.
Day 11: The Portal - Revisitation
Originally I thought I would take a picture of myself playing video games, and the game would act as a portal to another world. But, the screen was messing with the lighting. Instead, I used the same idea as the original portal image but went back through the doggy door the other way, acting as if there had been trials and hardships on the other side, whereas I was curious when going out the original direction. I tried to create an opposite of the first one, adding a bright vignette instead of dark and focusing more on the outside.
Day 12: Purity of Purpose
I went sledding on my snow day and thought that sledding was a good embodiment of purity with clean snow and innocent fun. The purpose is to try to make it down a steep hill with just some plastic between you and the ground. Thus, the purity of having this purpose. I like how you can see the trail going up behind me and the snow kicking up as I jump.
Day 13: Beyond All
While I was trying to shoot for this prompt I saw my mom making dinner, and she had finished cutting up a bunch of meat which looked pretty cool. I wanted the picture to focus on this meat, but to follow the prompt I stood far away from the camera. Therefore, I was beyond the main subject, which could be considered my 'all.'
Day 14: The Prismatic Experience
I hadn't used a mirror to take pictures yet and because prisms are similar to mirrors, I thought this would be a good prompt to start doing so. I also found a cool rock sort of thing in my room that was like a prism. I used the contrast of the close up smaller mirror and the bigger normal zoom mirror to embody an "experience." The mirrors and the rock I was holding brought in the prism element. I made a weird face and added a distortion to accentuate these elements.
Day 15: Kaleidoscope of Being
I knew we had a kaleidoscope in our living room window, so I decided to begin the photo with this. I thought because it was in the window and I had to be in it that it would be cool for me to stand on the other side of the window. I also liked the snow in the background. I didn't know what to do with my arms so I put them in a circle over my head which sort of seemed like a different being or being in the moment.
Day 16: A warrior's Journey
Entirely by coincidence I wore camo pants on this day, and so I thought of a soldier as a warrior. I originally thought I could pretend to be resting after a long journey or walking on a path but instead thought it would look a lot more interesting if I made an action scene. I had more realistic looking airsoft guns, but thought that the irony of having a plastic, colorful one would be funny and more interesting. I counted the flashes on the countdown until it paused on ten, then threw up some nerf bullets and quickly assumed my position to make it look more as if I am in the heat of battle.
Day 17: THe Misty Veil of Rebirth
My first line of thinking was to wear a black cape as a veil, and spray a bunch of febreze in front of the camera to act as mist. But, in a test photo the camera didn't capture the febreze very well and I didn't want to make the house smell insane. Instead, I used flowers we had as a veil in front of me, as if I was hidden behind them in comfort. They also symbolized rebirth because they are getting close to dying, but new flowers will grow in their place. It's a stretch, but I also thought of the robe I wore as a robe that a tibetan monk wears, and they believe in reincarnation.
Day 18: Black and White, Loss and Deceit
I had to look up deceit in the dictionary for this prompt, and found that both loss and deceit were very melancholy, sad terms. Black and White also display this same line of feelings. I wanted to try to take a picture utterly void of emotion, yet that makes a statement. Besides editing it to be black and white and looking forlorn, I liked the happy image on my shirt, and the happy birthday balloon. Even though these are happy elements, they are made depressing and lost in the setting of this image. The contrast creates the statement I wanted, while keeping the mood sad and depressing.
Day 19: Discipline of Passion
I had trouble thinking of something to shoot for this prompt, but as I was thinking I noticed objects in my living room that reminded me of passion. I decided on a solid backdrop and a close up view to highlight the objects and then just sat down with them. I edited the photo with a pink tint to add the "passion" mood.
Day 20: The Day
My family and I were driving to Farmington for the day and I was trying to think of something to shoot for this prompt when I saw this sign. It was daytime, the clouds looked nice, and this sign was perfect for the title "The Day." On our way back to Durango we stopped at the sign and my brother and I posed for the photo.
Day 21: A Knock at the Door
I thought instead of simply knocking on my door or showing my face looking through the glass of the door, it would be interesting to pretend that I had already knocked at the door, and someone had already answered it. For some reason, I thought of a different type of creature being the one who knocked at the door. So I got some alien-like glasses and stood on tiptoe in my mom's boots so I would be posed oddly. I added to the surreal effect with the hazy and desaturated editing.
Day 22: Find Another Day
The idea behind this photo was to be looking at a scrapbook, which was like looking back on a different day, or finding another day. It's hard to see the scrapbook, but I felt that it wasn't important to be able to see it well, and I thought lightening the photo would take away from the cool silhouette that the window behind me created. Also, I wanted to keep the sunlight rays that were coming through the window and softening the wall next to me and the lighting that the room behind me had.
Day 23: Release of Knowing
At first for this photo I tried to make my dogs look like they were telling me a secret, but now they are pretty scared of the camera. I gave up and instead just tried to act like I was being enlightened by the knowledge I was gaining from the book.
Day 24: Passionately Alive
This prompt also had the word passion in it, so I had the same line of thinking: find a bunch of red things and make the photo interesting and happy. I put on my red jacket backwards and backpack on backwards to make it look a little like my head was turned backwards and so were my arms. Then I found more red in the fridge: a smoothie and a bunch of mixed fruit, which I held up. Finally, I looked happy.
Day 25: Defiance of Reason
For this prompt I decided to symbolize defying reason through drawing. My thinking was that drawing a bunch of scribbles would show an example of having no reason in a task. I like the angle I used, and how you can't see what's behind me.
Day 26: The Color Red
This prompt was very straightforward: it was simply a color, so I gathered as many red things as I could find into one photo. I edited out shadows to try to make the red pop as much as possible.
Day 27: Your Choice/The Dark Abyss
I was trying to come up with a name for a photo, and the dark abyss sounded pretty cool. I didn't have an abyss in my house, so I thought I could use my staircase. I laid down at the bottom of the stairs and tried to look like I was falling into a hole, and edited it to be darker.
Day 28: The Rock
For this day I didn't really come up with the title before the photo, but because of my outfit I knew I needed to try and replicate this picture of Dwayne Johnson.
Day 29: $wag
I say swag a lot, so when I was trying to think of a title for my next photo it was what first came to mind. I assumed my swaggiest pose, showing off a collection of licorice and wearing an upturned visor. I felt inspired to edit this one with a distortion, but first I put on an Iris blur and then only distorted the background to make myself stand out.
Day 30: Thirty
For our other number-based prompt, "seven seconds," I used the microwave. For this prompt, I thought I would try to find something that was 30 inches long, and by coincidence, the microwave was! So, I took my first photo where just my hands were in it, and tried to highlight the number 30 on the measuring tape.
Day 31: Finale
I tried to incorporate as many things as possible from previous photos to commemorate the rest of the 31 days and fit the title "finale". Besides these things, I also noticed there were some rainbows on our kitchen door, and thought they would add to the photo.