Gotta get out of my Comfort Zone

Sometimes I feel like I've been cruising on autopilot. Just doing things the way I always do them, getting the exact same results, not really pushing, not really stretching. Sometimes, it's just because I'm way to busy, with way to many commitments, other times, it's due to laziness. When that happens, it's time to give myself a challenge.

For those of you that are familiar with this blog, you know I am a huge fan of David duChemin, and of course his $5 ebooks, which are available here. His first 2 ebooks, "Ten" & "Ten More", are still my favorites. He provides exercises in them to stretch your skills without buying gear. And one of those exercises is to shoot for a day with only 1 lens, at 1 focal length.

So I grabbed my 100mm 2.8 macro and headed off to the Arboretum. I am in no way a flower or macro shooter. I tend to struggle with both disciplines, so this would be a good exercise for me. Here are a few of the images I shot today, using only the 100mm macro (my macro is still the older version, not the 100mm macro f/2.8L)

A couple of things I was really trying to pay attention to as I was shooting today, were backgrounds, and colors.

I also only shot jpegs today. And something I learned today, macro photography is hard with out a tripod or monopod. These images were all hand held.

The 100mm macro is a pretty nice portrait lens too, and again, I was paying close attention to bacgrounds.

This little guy even posed for me

I will leave you with just a few more

So, when you get in a funk, what do you do?

 Tell us in the comments. And if you are a macro/flower photographer, how'd I do? And don't forget, no school on Monday!