Practice makes…better

I think the only thing I’m naturally good at is being lazy. That is not necessarily a good thing and so I stay busy with life’s chores. I am getting pretty good at working my hobbies into the to do list, and for the most part right now that’s just making sure I take a picture every day.

I also like to sew, but with the size of our house there’s no way to keep the machine and supplies out all the time to slowly work on projects. Therefore, when I’m going to sew I have to devote enough time to it to be able to get the project finished. Otherwise my projects just sit, and sit. When you can’t devote a lot of time to your hobby it’s hard to get better. I like to sew clothes and so when I can’t devote a lot of time to sewing the clothes that I sew aren’t very good.

This weekend I was able to spend the whole weekend marathon sewing with some friends. I sewed several clothes and was so happy to be able to complete the projects. Of course these things are not runway worthy. I may end up wearing them out of the house. I was upset at first as to why my garments don’t turn out as cute as the pictures on the front of the pattern packets. I had to remind myself, that like all things in life, practice makes better.

My sewing nook this weekend. Kitty cat is making sure my chair stays warm…

I’m not interested in trying to make things perfect. Perfect only existed once, 2,000 years ago. So at least I’m not trying to achieve perfection. I would like to achieve good though. HA! It’s helpful to look at anything we do as practice. That way when we’re less than satisfied with our results, whether it be with sewing or picture taking or cooking or parenting or what have you, we can look at it and at least be ok with the fact that that experience is helping us to be better the next time. It’s a matter of always trying to learn from the experience. That is what turns it from a potential failure to practicing to be better.

Wanting to continue to practice and finding the time to actually do that are two different things. Here’s to rearranging my to do list and my house just enough to be able to fit practicing in there a little better.

What I’d save in a fire…

LensProToGo’s challenge for week 3 is “Favorites”.* I posted last about what has quickly become a favorite of mine: New York City. To be true to their challenge I should to follow their guidelines…what do I love so much that I would want to save it above all else if my house were on fire (assuming all family and pets would escape unharmed). I knew immediately what that was…is…

My scrapbook albums and digital photo books.

These are our family’s memories, wrapped in pretty bindings and journaled with clever sayings and remembrances. When we’re old and grey and introducing ourselves to each other every day we’ll have these books to look back on and maybe spark a memory somewhere in the recesses. We have had such a blessed life and to document that is a privilege for me that I am really just beginning to take seriously.

May I never have to prove myself. May the shelf these books are on collect dust and more and more pages.

If you’d like a weekly challenge to spark your own creativity behind the lens head on over to LensProToGo and get involved with their Project52 (See their button on the left there?)! I’ve got at least three friends playing along with me. There’s a Flickr group and they post reminder blog posts and they’re even going to give a prize to everyone who participates. Woot! To me, the challenge and being able to expand my creative mind throughout the year is really the prize though.

My favorite

Moving on to week 3 of 2012! This week’s theme for the LensProToGo Project 52 is about favorites. When I took these pictures I thought the theme was about a generic favorite. New York City has quickly become one of my favorites. I got this frame at the Statue of Liberty gift shop. It’s made from parts of the metal that were removed from the Statue and the buildings on Ellis Island when they were renovated (I believe back in the 80s).

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BUT, then today the blog post was published with the detailed meaning of “favorite”.

What is the one thing you would most likely save if your house was on fire (considering your family, including all animals, were safe). If you could only keep 1 thing (again considering you could keep your family and pets) what would you want to save?

This frame, as cool as it is, wouldn’t be the one thing I would want to save. I know what I have to take a picture of now. . .

Resolution

It is now the middle of January when most New Year’s resolutions have been broken. Normally, at the beginning of the year, I have this boost of electron/synapse collaboration particularly between my organizational brain cells. I get all giddy about reorganizing my life, making what I already do more efficient and adding lots of other stuff to my life and fitting it in all that space and time I created after reorganizing everything else. I’m typically a realist, but along with all 7 billion other humans, realistic expectations fly out the window come the countdown and the dropping of the ball. Then 99% of the 7 billion humans actually do drop the ball and their resolutions end up a thing of the past, almost as quickly as the countdown to midnight took.

Not this year. I wasn’t and still don’t plan on disappointing myself. I didn’t even think about making any resolutions or “goals” this year. I know some of what this year holds and I’m not going to kid myself into thinking I can all the sudden add 50 things to my daily todo list and not feel let down.

What I have kept doing though is taking pictures every day. I started a Project365 last year and actually did take one picture every day. Except maybe one day, I think. Working on that throughout the year last year got me used to carrying around my camera or pulling out my phone and snapping pics–a lot of times, just to see how I could edit them in Instagram or Hipstamatic. It has already become more of my lifestyle.

So this year I am eager to continue that Project and  challenge my creative side. I’ve signed up for two Project 52s and a Project 12*. They will give me a prompt each week/month and I’ll try to end up taking a picture to suit the given theme. What I’m hoping is that my creativity will be tested and I’ll get better about thinking outside the box. Or even thinking within the box but taking a better picture of it. The cool thing about photography is the only way to get better is to practice.

That’s the cool thing about anything, isn’t it. The cool thing about photography is your practice can result in some awesome accidents where you actually do end up growing as a photographer picture taker. (I can’t bring myself to call myself a photographer).

So, in the end, I guess I technically am making a resolution. To be more creative with my picture taking and to attempt to keep up with these photo projects. I’ve given myself the ok to skip a week or month or two. There’s no prize for completing 100%. And I can pick up where I left off. Not like the exercise thing I’ve resolved to do in the past, where you can’t actually pick up where you left off, you have to kind of do some remedial exercise to get you back to where you left off.

*The Project 12 is MCP’s Project 12 and the theme of their first month is. . . resolution!
The Project 52s are LensProToGo’s Project52 and Paint The Moon’s Let’s Do 52.
If you want to do the Project 365 download the Project365 app.

NB – Why do I look like a complete spy in the photo above? I was heading outside to capture the snowfall and decided to see what I could capture in the mirror before I stepped out. I’m glad I had just painted my nails…

Experiencing the Holocaust Museum

A friend and I experienced the Holocaust Museum today. That’s really the only way to describe it. For the hours that you are there you are transformed and the amount of emotions that you go through is hard to describe. Sight, sound, smell, touch…you experience the plight of the Jews in so many ways.

I came away feeling:

shocked
disgusted
disbelieving
amazed
in awe
heart broken
fascinated
sickened
etc.
etc.
etc.

A child’s cup, decorated so cutely with cartoon characters – this is what touched me the most.

It was taken from one of the children as he or she was stripped of all possessions before being taken into a concentration camp. On display were hundreds of those possessions: shoes, combs, silverware, thermoses, suitcases… That cup though. I couldn’t take it.

There was a picture of a family that had been massacred on the street, their bodies photographed and left for everyone to see. Lying next to her family, probably Ashlyn’s age, an innocent little girl. I broke down.

How the whole thing could even happen is shocking, unbelievable and the worst kind of horrible. But how one human being could do to a child what was done to all 6 million people is somehow even worse.

In the Hall of Remembrance was this verse:

Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely
so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen
or let them slip from your heart as long as you live.
Teach them to your children and to their children after them.
Deuteronomy 4:9