The second in a continuing series where I post pictures from my 365 project.

365-5:  This is my dog, Martha, doing her watchdog routine in the backyard.  It was a cloudy night so I used a little bit of flash to light her.  I think I’m finally starting to get the hang of the canted angle shot, and I like the way it works with the ultra-wide angle lens here.

365-6:  I went to Branson this past weekend with family, and this lovely (natural) waterfall was just down the road.  I spent quite a bit of time trying to capture it from different angles, but straight on was just the best.  This won second place at the Jeff City Photo Club last night in the projected image category.  (Yay!)

365-7:  I returned to the waterfall on Saturday and took a few more pictures, but it was a sunnier day and I wasn’t having as much success.

365-8:  This was the gravel road near our cabin, with some late fall yellow blooms in the foreground.  It was a misty morning.

365-9:  Monday was the prettiest day in (what seems like) weeks!  Martha and I went to the dog park, where I took this picture of her with the fall leaves.  She matches!  This probably could use a better crop- you can’t quite see her big doggy smile.

Followers of my photo blog might not know it, but I’m a bit of a goal-setter.  It makes me feel productive.

I have shot several weddings, engagements, and families this year (and might do some more before the year is out), but I have shot very little for myself.  And that’s disappointing because the royalties I’ve made on my photography have all been from pictures that I shot for myself.

On Flickr (a site that I really recommend if you’re into photography), 365 Projects have become very popular.  The goal is simply to take a photo every day for 365 days.  Sometimes there are more rules than that- the photos all have to be self-portraits, or pictures of kids, or pictures of toys, or something like that.  But you take and upload a picture every day for a year.

I’d heard of 365 Projects before, but never really considered doing one until last week, when it hit me that a 365 Project is not only a great way to get myself shooting for myself, but it’s also exactly the kind of thing that’s up my alley.  I love projects like this, especially when they have deadlines (shoot & process a photo every day).  I do really well with parameters like this.

But I don’t want to shoot self-portraits or kids or toys or my dog every day for a year.  I want to get out of my house and shoot photos that help me get more creative with my camera, improve my eye, and keep me experimenting with different ways of making a good photo.  So my 365 Project doesn’t have a theme.  It’s just me and my camera and what I hope will be 365 days of decent photos.

I started this project last weekend (after I shot a wedding on Sunday with Silver Box!) and I’m going to post my first four days’ worth of photos here on the blog.  I intend to post all my photos from my 365 Project on my blog, either every week or every few days (depending on how my life goes!)

So, here we go!  It was such a cold and overcast week, but that is part of the fun of getting out and shooting: getting creative.  And it’s hard to be creatively challenged during the prettiest part of autumn.

365-1: Pumpkins at the Hartsburg Pumpkin Festival last weekend.

365-2: Bright red burning bush leaves.  There is a big row of these planted at the car wash near my house.  I was crawling around looking for a shot in my work clothes and boots, and I’m sure I was a source of mindless entertainment to those waiting in line for a car wash.

365-3: I found this grate on the shore of the Missouri River last year, and just cleaned it up and put it on my mantle this week.  (I think my 365 project will involve some house pictures, because I’ve been doing a lot of work around the house this year, but I will try to vary it up with some different light setups.)

365-4: Eastern Redcedar is a type of juniper tree that is usually referred to as a cedar tree.  They grow all over Missouri, and they are one of my favorite types of trees.  In the fall, the blue juniper berries appear.  This one grows in my backyard and is home to a few birds, I think.

Click on any of these photos for links to my Flickr site.  I’ll be back next week with pictures from my trip out of town this weekend.