I’m a nerd. I know it. My husband knows it. We embrace it. I take every class I can handle, both financially and with time commitments. I am a mom afterall, raising my little girls, volunteering and so on. But when I get to take photography classes, or crafting classes, or art classes, I feel like a kid on Christmas morning! Instead of opening presents, I get to open up my mind and CREATE! What absolute joy it brings me!

One of my favorite series of classes was led by Tracey Clark {love her!}. The series “Picture ______” – Picture Summer, Picture Fall, Picture Color, etc. – is offered at Big Picture Classes as self-paced projects. I haven’t taken them all {yet}, but I thoroughly enjoyed Picture Black & White. We received a photo-prompt every other day, and had 2 days to post our photos. I think what I thoroughly enjoy about classes {and now I’m realizing, weekly challenges as well}, is that it makes me make time to photograph creatively. Not just doing family sessions, or taking photos of my babies, which I absolutely LOVE to do as much as I can. With classes or challenges, I get to think about the prompt, usually somewhat broad, sometimes vague, but always purposeful.

For this series of photos, I had a super long journey… about 20 steps out my front door! The prompt was “Seeing a Pattern” and as I was noodling on the idea, my family and I were returning from a lovely day at one of our wonderful beaches. As I was getting my little one out of the car, the palm tree caught my attention from the corner of my eye. I’ve never given it much thought, with one exception…

Years ago, maybe 10 years ago, my husband and I “found” a palm leaf growing on the side of one of our planters, right up against the brick edging. It was a little thing – maybe 8 inches tall. We dug it up and replanted it in the center of one of the open planters. Now here we are with this huge Mexican Fan palm tree. And having the “pattern” thought stuck in my head, I was completely taken by the patterns in both the leaves and the trunk.

The fact that the class was a study of black and white also helped to see the pattern more clearly, yet the openness for creative liberty allowed me to play with composition and make it more abstract. And had it not been for this class, I probably would of never noticed the patterns on the tree, and I really doubt I would’ve photographed it this way. Isn’t it crazy how the little things we pass daily can sometimes have the most uncommon beauty staring at us, beckoning us to notice them?

Thanks for stopping by and have a joyful, creative, blessing filled day!
Live creatively!
xoxo,
/c

PS. Huge thank you to A Word in Your Ear for reblogging my Old Vintage Goodness post, and all the visitors, likes and new followers that found me through it! You all ROCKED my weekend : )