This week’s Texture Tuesday challenge was to simply use any texture on a photo!  That I can do.  This is from a weekend portrait session with the beautiful Sarah at Camp Dixie in Soddy Daisy (Chattanooga) Tennessee.  It was a pretty day, but when it got a little chilly we bundled up in a vintage quilt.  Since I loved Sarah in this quilt, I chose Kim Klassen’s “LOVE” texture. 

I am entering this photo in Kim Klassen’s Texture Tuesday.

Camp Dixie is a favorite spot for weddings, so when I had the opportunity to do a child portrait session there, I was so excited.  It is absolutely beautiful.  AND, speaking of beautiful, how about the beautiful Sarah!  She is so pretty and such a natural.  See the above photo?  That was the first one I took!  There was no warm up, no getting comfortable in front of the camera, she just hit the ground running.

Sigh.  Seriously.  She is a dream.

No, this is not outtakes from one of my Chattanooga Family Sessions!  Well, yes, it was family.  But not yours, mine!   This is my grandson.   As you can imagine, every time he sees me, I have my camera.  Apparently getting your picture taken all the time can get old, and one simply must amuse oneself in some manner.

When Beyond Layers issued the challenge to put together a storyboard, I immediately thought of these pictures.  I know that a storyboard is supposed to tell a story.  I’m not sure what this one is telling, other than my grandson is silly!

The Texture Tuesday challenge for last week was to use the texture “simplicity”.  I know that I already used a tulip in my texture Tuesday challenge, but I’m just trying to get my money’s worth out of my tulip bouquet!!

I am entering this photo in Kim Klassen’s Texture Tuesday.

Last week, our prompts for Beyond Layers had to do with making a six word memoir and also using one word to create a photo.   I am not going to confess how long I tried to come up with six words.  Oh, I had some great 5 words and some excellent 7 words, 6 words was elusive.  I knew that I wanted it to include books.  Books have been my best friends forever.   No matter how bad things get, I can lose myself in a book.  They were my saving grace through my childhood.

So, I kind of combined both assignments into one.  The above picture is a book.  If you opened the book and looked inside, you would see that it says, in a shaky cursive, Pam Armstrong 4S.  That’s me.  In fourth grade.  I was in fourth grade about 40 years ago.  I have kept this book with me, through college, through first jobs, and now it still rests in a bookcase beside my bed.  Books.  That is my word. 

On Tuesday, I promised you so more books processed using textures.  These were processed using Kim Klassen’s “Weathered” texture.  It’s more extreme than Tuesdays.  Which do you like better?  I thought that I like Tuesday’s better, but now looking at this again, I’m not sure.

Today’s theme for Texture Tuesday was “Story” – this was easy with a house full of books!  I chose three old books (from my collection) and processed them with Kim Klassen’s  “love” texture.  It is much more subtle than last week. 

I also did another photo with the books standing up, that I’ll post later in the week.  It’s a bit more dramatic. 

I am entering this photo in Kim Klassen’s Texture Tuesday.

Okay, so I told you all that I have signed up to do a few photo challenges this year.  One of the things I signed up for, and am so excited about is a project from Kim Klassen called Beyond Layers.  It is a year long, 52 week project.  Each week we are given an inspiration, some guidance in a photo for the week.

I look at this as a chance to grow and explore the areas of photography that excite me, challenge me. 

This weeks inspiration was “less is more.”  Just enough to pull the viewer in.  Look for the light and go light.

The above photo was processed with a just a bit of Kim Klassen’s “Awake” texture.

I’m kind of over winter.  If we are not going to have snow days, I’d just as soon summer be here.  So, to put myself in a summer frame of mind, I decided to actually edit some of my photos taken last summer. 

I can almost here the squeals of children playing in the sprinklers.

As I stated earlier, I plan on participating in some photo challenges this year.  There are so many to chose from, it’s almost overwhelming.  After much soul searching, I figured out that I could probably do only 3 of them comfortably.  Those that I chose are primarily monthly, which takes off some of the pressure.  The only weekly challenge that I’m going to do involves textures.  I love photos edited with textures, and want to practice, practice, practice.  If you’ve read Outliers, you know that you have to do something about 10,000 hours before you can say you’ve mastered it.  So, that’s a lot of textures! 

One of the projects that I settled on was The Shutter Sisters One Word project.  Basically, they give you a word a month.  For January the word is “your word”.  The word you chose as your word for the year.  If you are unfamiliar with the One Little Word project, I talk about it Sidewalk Shoes.

My word for the year is “create”.  As in…create photos, beauty, love, a cozy home, a happy family, comforting meals, my own happiness.  See, the possibilities are endless!  One of the things that I am absolutely fabulous at creating is lists.  I love them.