I haven’t participated in the Digital Photography Forum weekly assignments in awhile. But have been meaning to get back into it. So here’s my latest submission for the assignment, circles.

For a photo to qualify for this week’s assignment, it means no post-processing except for cropping and resizing for the forum’s size restrictions. This photo is by the books with only a tad bit of cropping done to it and resized.

This assignment was easy. We just had our 4th major snow storm of the season the day before I took this shot. I was coming home and detoured through the beautiful Oakland University campus hoping for a great photo for the assignment. Came upon this scene and felt it was right out of a book.

Meadowbrook Hall resides on Oakland University’s campus. It was built between 1926 and 1929 as a home for widow Matilda Dodge Wilson (widow of auto pioneer John Dodge) and her second husband, lumber broker Alfred G. Wilson. With 88,000 square feet of 110 rooms, 88,000-square-foot, Tudor-revival style mansion is the 4th largest house museum in the United States.

ETA on Feb 16, 2008:
I wanted to add that today I found out that my photo was a runner up in the mini-contest at DPS. I’m so incredibly excited and honored!

You can read the blog post here >

For this week’s assignment, I immediately thought of our ever watchful dog, Kumo. He always keeps an eye on the children ensuring they are safe in his canine instinctive way. One day I’ll have to blog about how Kumo came to be a part of our family… truly a God-inspired story. :D

DOF or Depth of Field is the distance in front of and beyond the subject that appears to be in focus. A shallow DOF means only the subject is sharp while everything else is blurred while a deep depth of field has all objects from those closest to those farthest remaining in focus. In this photo, I haved used a shallow DOF.

Kayla wanted a bird, so she saved her money from pet-sitting jobs. Finally, the day came and we set out for the bird store. Peekaboo stole her heart the first moment she held him.

Ghetto lighting is using just the lighting on hand (i.e. desk lamp, torch, etc.) rather than proper photographic strobes or other professional lighting equipment. Since I don’t own any lighting items for my camera, this is something I do already.

This photo was taken at night using only our front porch as lighting.

My favorite color! I have a slew of knitting needles and yarn. One day I’d like to actually learn how to knit! LOL

Both my husband and I have grown in the deep south. After moving to Michigan due to job relocation 4 years ago, we still hate winter with the snow and cold. Shoveling is not our idea of fun as you can tell by my husband’s expression in the photo. (Or maybe he’s irritated more by me snapping photos instead of helping with the shoveling? )

Note: Weekly Assignments are practical digital photography assignments for the Digital Photography School community forum to participate in. Purely voluntary, I decided to participate as a way to expand my skills through these exercises.