Photograph Your Days In 30 Different Ways: A 30-Day Lifestyle Photography Challenge

1. Introduction to The Class: Photography takes time to master, just like any other skill. What a better way to master that skill than to get out there and just take a photo every single day with this prompt style class. This class is called photograph your days in 30 different ways. It's a 30-day Lifestyle photography challenge. My name is Amanda, and I am a photographer, designer, and business coach. This is my fourth class on skill share, and I love teaching photography. I am bringing to you a class where you can dive in with different prompts each and every day for 30 days and really honing on your skills and improve over time. This class is for photographers of all levels, whether you've just picked up a camera or you've been taking photos for years. Whether you're just trying to gain some inspiration for what to take for your photos. Or if you are wanting to improve your skills by taking a photo each and every day this class is for you. I'll see you on the inside. 2. What You'll Need: Let's talk about what you'll need for this 30 day photo challenge. First up, of course you're going to need your camera. I use a DSLR. If you have a DSLR, that'll work great. But I also used my mobile smartphone. I have an iPhone 7 Plus. That works really great. Takes really good pictures. If you have an iPhone or if you have another type of smartphone that takes quality pictures then that will work in this class too. You'll also want your photo checklist. I have made a photo checklist for you that you can download and print off. It is in the project section of this class and you can print that off and then take it with you as you're taking photos, and that will help to keep you on track. You'll also need props or items that you use every single day in your life. Those will just add a little bit of interest to your photos and make them unique to you and make them a little bit more fun. Finally, what you're going to need is a willingness to have fun, to experiment and to get out there and explore. I created this class in order for you to take photos every day, but also for you to have fun and see what things that you like, that you don't like, which is a part of the creative process. As you're creating things, you can see what things work for you and what things don't. I would love for you to make sure that you're taking notes of what things that you've done throughout this class to make sure that you're doing those things again in the future. That's it, that's all that you need for this class. I will see you in the next video. 3. How This Class Works: We're going to talk about how this class is going to work. This is different than my other classes that I have here on skill share. This is a prompt driven class, meaning that each video is going to give you a prompt that you are going to follow, and you can take it and explore photography and make it whatever you want. This class, of course, contains some prompts and it contains some texts. What I really want for you is to start making photography a part of your every day life. Each day you can come back, you can check out the new prompt and then take 10, 15, 20 minutes and take some photos for that prompt in particular. These photos, you can use them everywhere online. You can use them on social media, if you're a business owner, you can use them on your Instagram feed, you can use them on Instagram stories, on your Facebook page, on your blog, on e-books or slides, wherever it is convenient and it helps you to get your brand out there, you can use these photos. You can use them for personal reasons too. You can just have fun and explore and experiment and see what you come up with and just learn and use it as an out learning experience. I hope that this explains to you a little bit about how this class is going to work. Let's talk a little bit about the class project. For the project, what I want you to do is, I would love for you to share a photo from the very first day of the challenge, here on skill share. That way, everybody can see what the other person is doing. Some people may not have social media, so that will help those who do not have social media to see what the other students in the class are doing and you guys can connect. Once you've taken more photos, if you want, you can come in and you can add more photos to your project, totally up to you. That way we can see your progress as you're going through the 30 days. It's really up to you though. It's not required. I just would love for you to upload that very first photo so that we can all see what you're up to. By updating along the way though, I will be able to of course, give you some feedback and to also help you along in this journey. That's it for this video, next up we're going to dive into the day one prompt. 4. Prompt 1 - Morning Reads: Day 1, we are jumping in with the prompts and I'm really excited for you to get started. I hope you have as much fun doing this as I did. Day 1, the prompt is morning reads, and I actually split the prompts into different categories. I have categories that are in different sections of your life that I could think of and this one actually goes into your mornings. The category of your mornings and what you might do in the mornings. This one is called morning reads. Basically I was thinking about when you wake up, if there's anything that you read in the morning. Some people might read the newspaper, I personally I like to read fiction books. Some people might read some self-help books. Whatever it may be that you read in the morning, I want you to go and take a picture of it. I of course, added in my morning cup of tea, or tea. I actually probably always have on hand, and I also added in a couple of other lovely things I have around, like some flowers that I might have around, my cozy blanket because it's been cold where I'm at. What I want you to do is take a photo of your morning reads and here are a couple of tips for you. The first thing I want you to do when you're doing this across all 30 days is, I want you to think about how you can take these photos from different angles. There are multiple angles and different ways that you can set up these photos. What I want you to do is strive to take more than one photo because you're going to try it from above, you're going to try it from the side, your going to try it right side. You're going to try to make sure that you're doing it from these different angles so you can see what angles that you're drawn to. That way, you'll start to recognize what you like as a photographer and you'll start to see a pattern of the things that you're drawn to as a photographer, when you're taking photos and you can start replicating that in photos in the future. Something else that I want you to do is to mix up the props and the things that you're using in the photos. Instead of maybe having flowers there, you could bring something else in. Just swap a couple of things out and to see what things you maybe like better. I have tried to take photos in the past and I got stuck on a photo and I'm like, why is this not looking good? I just don't really like the way that this looks. I discovered that if I switch up the props and the things that are in the photo, I actually start to like the photo more. That is a trick for you, a tip for you to can make things look different and then you'll also have a variety to choose from when you're choosing your final photo. The other thing that I wanted to point out in this particular photo that you see on your screen is that, you can use colors that work well together. Here you can see that I have this light pink book and then I have this donuts that has a purpley color, and It's blueberry vegan donuts, that I got from Whole Foods and those colors pair really well together. The other thing you can see that title there, it's a gold color and it actually goes really well with the color of the tea that I have. I pour way too much cream in my tea because I like it a lot, so you can see that those colors also go really well together. Think about the colors as you're putting things into your photographs. This next photo, a couple of tips that I wanted to give to you here are, one thing to bring in an element of texture with your photos. It'll make your photo more interesting, especially if you don't have a lot of things in the photograph. Here I only have three things and I really believe that if I were to take this blanket away, personally I would not like this photo as much. You just feel a little bare to me. Whereas the photo before there was enough going on, the background I kept really minimal. It didn't have any texture, was just a smooth white background. This one is a texture blanket and it just makes it a little bit more interesting plus it brings in that cozy element that mornings have. Then the other thing that I put here for a tip is, don't be afraid to let your tea or your coffee get cold. When I'm taking photos on the particular day that I might be taking photos, as far as you know, I really want to get my coffee or my tea in the photo. I just don't even worry about my tea getting cold. I can heat it back up or I'll drink it cold but to get the photo, I will take my time. Sometimes you have to do that. Sometimes you have to take a little bit longer to get what you want. That's it for Day 1 prompt, I hope that this is a fun one for you and I will see you in Day 2. 5. Prompt 2 - Creative Inspiration: Day two prompt is creative inspiration. What I did here is, I took the checklist that is available in the project section of this class and I used that for my inspiration, which is also what you'll be using for your inspiration throughout this class but also, as I was taking photos, I was just seeing the things out there that I was inspired by. Suppose outside, I was looking around and whatever grabbed my eye or whatever I thought was really interesting to look at, I decided to take a picture of that. That might spark me in another creative direction later. I have here a photo of my list, and then I also have a photo of these tree branches, that is casting a shadow on this brick building. I was really inspired by that. I found it to be really interesting and beautiful. I took the same shot of that. What I want you to do is to take photos of things that are currently inspiring you. You can walk around your house, you can walk outside. Literally, these photos can be of anything. It's just whatever you find that is an inspiration to you creatively. Now if you are going to take something like a picture of the checklist, it may not be interesting because it's just white paper with black text. What you can do is you can actually add a colored background behind the checklist and that will help you to make it a little bit more interesting like I did here. I actually painted this. It's a wooden board that I painted in one of my brand colors to make it where I can take photos and put them on my Instagram and it will match and I can use this all the time. You can do something like this where you can make a custom background. You just need paper or wood or something like that and you can paint it in a color that is similar to your branding. The other thing I want to reiterate is, getting outside because there is inspiration all around. I find that if you're lacking in creativity, it's a really easy way to jump start that creativity again. If you get outside, take a walk around, it's a great time to take your camera with you. It's a great time for you to just practice photography, just exploring and taking photos, seeing what you like, seeing what works and what doesn't work and I really guarantee that this would be a quick remedy to that lack of inspiration that you might be feeling. That's it for day two. I'll see you in the next video. 6. Prompt 3 - Your Hobbies: Day three prompt is one of my absolute favorites. We will be taking photos of our hobbies. I have a couple of pictures here that I took. I love to paint. That's one of my hobbies. I also love to read fiction books. When I was doing these hobbies, going about painting, going about reading, I decided to sit down and take a couple of photos of that. What I want you to do on this day is I want you to do something that is creative or something that you enjoy. While you are doing it, just be sure to take a moment to snap a picture. This can be something that you spend a lot of time on, or it could be something that you just take a picture really quickly. A couple of tips for you. Sharing your photos of your hobbies on social media is something that I believe is so great to do, especially if you are a business owner. I'm a creative business owner. I help other creatives and we connect on the things that we like to do. The people who follow me, they enjoy to see what I'm up to. They enjoy to see what things I find are hobbies and I believe it will be the same for you. It's a great way for you to connect to your audience, a great way for you to engage with them. It will bring people in. You can also use hashtags on Instagram that relate to the hobby that you do and you can bring those people in, so more people will follow you. The thing that I want you to remember, and I've already said this, but it's a very important thing to remember throughout this challenge is that it's good for you to take different angles. When you're taking photos, I don't want you just to think I need to just get one shot and I'm done and over with. Although sometimes you might be doing something really quickly and it might have to be a quick shot. But sometimes I want you to try to get these different angles, try to move things around. Try to do something that is above and beyond. That way, you can start to learn what you like. For instance, I took this photo after I had already taken several photos from above. Now while I liked the photos from above, I actually ended up liking this photo a lot and I didn't know that I would until I got down low. This is on like a really short table that I have inside of my living room. It's not very far off the ground and I sit and I put my legs underneath it. I sit on the floor and I paint there. When I got down really low, like when I'm painting, I'm down there on the ground and I looked at it straight on. This is what I saw and I was like, "Oh, wow, that's really pretty." I would not have known that had I not taken a step back, had I not taken photos from above, from the side and then down when I was sitting down. If you will take some photos from different angles, you'll start to see different things that work for you. You might find some great lighting that way. You might find that something is really pretty that you just didn't even know until you got down on a different level. I want you to stretch yourself with this and see what you come up with. This photo here that I have of me reading a fiction book, I wanted to say a couple of things. First of all, I think it's really great to add in props or things that you are using while you're doing your hobby. For instance, I'm reading here and I have my cup that I placed actually on the blanket very carefully so as not to spill it. Then I had this blanket that I was using that I wanted to also have here in this photo because it adds to the coziness of this reading practice that I have. What I want you to do is to think about the things that make sense in the scene. If it doesn't make sense in the scene, take it away. If it does make sense, maybe add it in or leave it there and take a picture and see what happens. Visually, what you want to do is invite others into this activity, into the space in your life so that they can really connect with you. You can do that by adding these different props or really giving a lot of thought to the items that are in your photograph. What I want you to do is think about how you can attract people, by the things that you have in your photograph. Then people who are not going to like the things that you do, you will repel them away. Thinking about using hobbies as a prompt, this is something that you can do over and over again, of course, and something that can be really fun for you as well as for the people who follow you. One thing I want to mention is that if you're following along with this daily, I would love to see your photos on Instagram. If you want to show them on Instagram, you can use a #pydskillshare, which is photograph your days skillshare. Be sure to tag me, be sure to use that hashtag so that I can see what you're up to. Don't forget to include one of your photos in the class project so that other students can see what you've created. I'll see you tomorrow with the next prompt. 7. Prompt 4 - Your Feet: Day 4 is a prompt that I actually use all the time. It is to photograph your feet. I know this might seem a little silly, but it's a fun one that you can do easily without having to have somebody else there to help you. Of course, sometimes it can help to have somebody else there with you. But often I will take photos of my feet without needing anybody else to assist me. The other thing that I really love about taking photos of my feet is that I can show context of what I'm doing in my day which can be really nice if you are wanting to share some more casual photos, like maybe in your Instagram stories and tell people what you're up to throughout your day. For instance, here I have two photos. One on the left is where I went out to Whole Foods. I got some yummy things to eat while I was there and then I also picked myself up a bouquet of beautiful flowers. You can see here I have my little Whole Foods stack and then I have those flowers placed right inside. It was also a lovely day and the weather was really nice and so the green grass and everything made me feel like spring is coming. This photo, of course, shows the context of that day. Then on the right side, I was with my husband. We were out taking photos, we were out in Philadelphia, and we were by the water here. I was just sitting there and I asked him to snap a photo of my shoes because we had these flowers that he had purchased for me and I had my cameras sitting there, and I was like, I bet this would be a cute photo. So he snapped a photo of this for me. Of course, I did need to provide him some direction of what to do. What I want to tell to you about tips is don't be afraid to just use your iPhone or to just use your smart phone. It makes life a lot easier sometimes when you just use your smartphone. Whenever I'm doing photos of my feet, I'm pretty much always exclusively using my phone to take those photos. Unless I want it for something special and I want it to be a little bit more professional looking, then I will use my camera. But for the most part, I'm just using my iPhone for these feet photos. Now, the other thing that I said is, if you're going to be out and you want photos of yourself for your website, for social media, if it's more than just your feet, you might want to bring a friend along. I did have my husband snap this photo. I did have him snap a couple of other photos of me when I was out that were not my feet. So having him there with me allowed me to do those things. Even though it might be somebody else taking a photo for you, you can act in a sense as the art director. So give that person some guidance as to how you want the photo to look. This is where you're thinking in your mind about the finished product. When you start thinking in this way, it will actually change your photography on multiple levels. Not only just when you're having somebody else take the photos for you, but you'll also change and start to develop a photographic eye where you start to think about things and think about where they need to be placed and how you want the end result to be. Then it can be challenging to have somebody else follow through with your idea. I actually had to tell my husband how to do this and it took me several times to tell him what I wanted and him to get it right. So, maybe bring along a friend who's very patient. That always tends to help. Day 4 the prompt for you is feet. This is, again, like I said, a really exciting and fun one, and I can't wait to see what you come up with. 8. Prompt 5 - Practicing Your Craft: Day five prompt is practicing your craft. This prompt is a fun one for me, it's something that I really enjoy doing. Of course, I love creating art, I love painting and drawing and doodling and doing anything creative. So I want you to think of this in that way. What is it that you do, that you create? I want you to take photos of yourself doing that, or of what you create. Basically, something that I just pulled out of Canvas, and I chose a subject matter and then I just went to town and started painting. I actually had my husband help me with this photo too. I could have set my tripod up and then have my camera on my tripod, but it's just easier sometimes to just be like '' hey take some photos'', and it's quicker sometimes than me actually doing it on myself. It's depending on if you have availability for somebody to help you out or not. Whether or not you can have pictures of your hands, or you can use your smart phone in order to take the photos. Another thing, people never get sick of seeing you practice your craft. People love to see other people create. It's just something you can tell. If you go on Instagram and you look at some of these people who they're constantly posting to Instagram stories, are constantly posting the things that they've created, you can see that people love to see that. Whenever I'm watching on Instagram, I'm scrolling through and then I see somebody who's actually making a video, two of them creating, I'm just mesmerized by it, and I stop what I'm doing, scrolling through or whatever, and I just sit there and I watch it. It's something that we can do over and over again, a prompt that you can use once a week, you can use it once a day. It's really up to you how often you want to share photos like this. But I really believe that you can share over and over again, and people are not going to get sick of it. What I want you to do is to break out your art supplies, or if you're a knitter, break out your yarn, whatever it is that you do, bring it out. Start practicing your craft and take some photos of that process, and then share it. I will see you in day six. 9. Prompt 6 - Texture: The days six prompt is texture. This prompt is one that actually, you can do a lot of things with, because texture is everywhere. So you can see here, I have a couple of pictures that I took when I was out in Philadelphia, I was walking around. In Philadelphia, of course, there's a lot of old buildings and interesting things to look at, so it was just a playground for me to be able to take these types of photos. So I looked around and I was drawn to this old road and it had these little cobblestones on the road. So I took a photo of that and then I also took a photo of this ivy that's growing up the brick and I thought it was really neat, the juxtaposition of this natural plant against this brick wall and I liked also the ivy that kind of has died and it's still kind of there and stuck to the wall. I thought it was interesting. So those are the pictures that I found and what I want to say is that definitely you can look in your house, you can look outside your house for texture. I'm sure that there will be multiple items for you to photograph and just look around and see the things that you are drawn to. If there's something that you're like, oh, that's a texture, but it's not something that you really like or you think is pleasing to the eye, then don't take that photo. Look for something that you're really drawn to. The other thing that I want to say is that texture photos make great backgrounds. So if you wanted to use this for a quote, if you wanted to make like an Instagram quote photo, or you wanted to use it behind a story, so you put this picture up and then you put some text over it or if you even wanted to use it like on your website or on something that you might print out, it makes a great background. You can put like a white layer over top with some text, like I often do on my slides, I'm sure that you've seen and you can make it where you can use it literally anywhere and it's just kind of like a filler photo. So that is day six texture and I will see you in the next prompt. 10. Prompt 7 - At the Cafe: Welcome back to Day 7. Today's prompt is at the cafe. I'll tell you that this is a really fun one for me because I do work from home and sometimes it's just nice to get out and to do something different. Going to a cafe is a joy to me. Here you can see I have a couple of photos. I have a photo of the coffee making machine. I don't drink coffee, so I don't know what it's called but I thought that it was really pretty. It was vintagey-looking so I took a photo of that, and then of course, you see my coffee and some beautiful flowers. I think that when you go to a cafe, there's a lot of opportunities for photos. You will find these opportunities without trying very hard, without looking around because it's just created to be cute, to be Instagrammable and to be interesting. Most cafe owners put a lot of time and money into making their location cute and to making it different than other cafes around. I feel that you can come up with a lot of photos or come away with a lot of photos whereas, if you're going to a regular restaurant or if you're going to something that is not as Instagrammable, you'll struggle a bit more to find photos. When you go into a cafe, look high, look down low, look everywhere you can and you'll find some photo opportunities for yourself. Now, another tip that I wanted to mention is if you're shy about taking photos, then you can use your smartphone. I'm shy about taking photos in public. I get nervous that other people are watching me. Instead of bringing out my big camera and taking photos when there's a lot of people around, I just use my smartphone. It's less conspicuous and there are always a lot of people who are doing the same thing as you are and taking photos themselves. I feel like if I bring out my iPhone or my smartphone instead, I know other people are doing the same thing so I'm not drawing any attention to myself, whereas if I brought out my camera and there were a lot of people around, I might feel shy. If you were taking photos of yourself in the cafe and you feel shy, have somebody else take those photos of you nonchalantly, again with a smartphone. My husband, he'll come with me and this also makes me extremely nervous, to have somebody else taking photos of me where other people might look at me. I am shy so that's how it happens. He will use his phone and that makes me feel a little less shy just because it's not drawing as much attention and I do want it to be quietly taking photos of me. He's not going to shout or anything like that. He'll just snap a photo when he sees that I'm doing something different or unique. He'll take a bunch of them so that way I have a lot to choose from. So Day 7 is at the cafe. There's a lot of different things that you can get here. I would say go to town and have fun and take as many photos as you can, because you can use them over a long period of time too. 11. Prompt 8 - Collections: Day eight is collections. Now what I mean when I say collections is something that you collect. I personally, I collect these old vintage cameras that you see here on your screen. Several of them actually came from my grandpa. I have several cameras here that I have collected. My family gives them to me and I'm able to keep them in my home and look at them, but also they make for great photos. Then I have on the right-hand side Matryoshka dolls. I lived a year in Russia, so I collected Matryoshka dolls when I was there and then brought a lot of them home, and so this also makes for really interesting photos. Plus the detail and the way that they're crafted is really beautiful. It makes for very interesting photograph. Here are the tips that I want to tell you are, to try to place these items that you've collected in a row, but then also switch it up and try to place maybe one item towards the front, and then the rest in the back so that they are slightly blurred, so that you can have a different composition. Experiment with the placement of your collection. See what you like, see what you don't like about the different placements that you do. You might have to take several photos here, to figure out a placement that you like. As you're doing this, take some notes of what you like and what you don't like, because then you can replicate the same thing with other photographs in the future. 12. Prompt 9 - Breakfast Flatlay: Welcome to Day 9. Today's prompt is breakfast flatlay. I actually really enjoy taking photos of food. I didn't even realize that until I started this challenge. I have here a beautiful doughnut that I got from whole foods. That is a Vegan Blueberry doughnut. There's two different scenarios. The first scenario is where the flowers are in view and they are in focus, and you see the other things below are out of focus. The doughnut and my tea, those are out of focus. The second one you see, the flowers are out of focus and the doughnut is in focus. What I want you to think about when you're doing this is to try, first of all, to keep your camera parallel to the background as much as possible. You want to make sure that it's flat as much as possible. Of course that's not always possible, but try your best. The second thing is that if you have taller items, like you can see here, I have this taller item of the flowers in a vase, the item that is taller is maybe out of focus here because I'm not focused on that, but also because of the depth of field. Here the doughnut is in focus. That's what I chose to focus on with my camera. Realize when you're doing this and if you have taller items, they may not be in focus or you might be going for that so you can do that purposefully. For more tips about flatlay photography, I do have an entire class here on Skillshare. It's called Share Your Artwork with Flatlay Photography. Now if you're not an artist, that's okay. You can still take the class. It will have some useful tips for you, but it is geared towards sharing your artwork. I'll let you know that, just up front that it is geared towards that. But you can definitely learn a lot from taking that class. That's it for Day 9. I cannot wait to see your breakfast flatlays, and I'll see you tomorrow in the Day 10 prompt. 13. Prompt 10 - Exploration: The daytime prompt is all about exploration. So getting out there and exploring and finding different things to take photographs of. I actually took this prompt, and decided to do it from the perspective of me exploring. So I had my husband with me as I was taking photos. He kind of trailed along behind me, and he took photos of me with my iPhone. I have better quality iPhone than his so that's why he was using mine. He just walked behind me and took pictures as I was doing things, and I told him to take a bunch, that way I could choose the ones that I like the best. So what you'll want to do is get out there and you can have somebody who's taking photos of you as you're exploring, or you could just take photos that you find as you're exploring. Use this as an opportunity to go somewhere new that you've never been before. The reason I say this is because when you go to a new place, you're looking at this place with fresh eyes. You're looking at this place with eyes that are curious. Whereas if you go to a place that you've been before, it's not going to be as interesting and you'll have a harder time finding opportunities for photographs. Sometimes it's a good challenge and it's a good thing to do. But for this challenge, I want you to go to a new place that you've never been before, and look at it with fresh eyes and try to find something new and interesting to take a photograph of. That's it for daytime, and I'll see you in a bonus video next with a prompt that is one of my absolute favorites. 14. Bonus Prompt - Favorite Florals: I need to add a few bonus prompts for you. If any of the prompts you don't like or you can't do for one reason or another, this gives you an opportunity to still complete the 30 days. So the first one is favorite florals. Favorite florals is one of my absolute favorite things to do. I love to take photos of flowers. I have here a couple of close-ups that you can see and then I have also a photo that's a little bit further away. Now, I would love for you to try to take some close-ups, but do you realize that it is more difficult with your mobile phone then it is with a DSLR camera and the right lens? So, here you can see that I have actually used my DSLR camera for this photograph,and I used a 24 millimeter lens, which is also called a pancake lens. It's fairly inexpensive, about $125 for this lens. Lenses are actually really pricey. So if you're looking for a cheaper lens, this one could serve you well. It's a great one to do some macro shots and it's a great one to also take some wide shots. I do realize that that's not something that everybody can pay for. But as far as lenses ago, that is on the cheaper end of things. I also used aperture priority or AV on my camera, and I have my aperture set to 1.8. Now, 1.8 is the lowest number that I have on this particular lens. If you look at the lens, you'll see a small number and you'll see a high number as far as the aperture goes, and this is the lowest that I can get as far as the number goes, meaning the most amount of light is coming into the camera. This allowed me to achieve this blurry look that I wanted to achieve where everything is kind of soft and dreamy and then they're in the middle. It's in focus. I wanted there to be some blurriness in the foreground and some blurriness in the background of this photo and then just have a sliver of the flower that's actually in a focused. So I wanted to let you know that this is achievable, definitely with a DSLR, but I don't think that it is as achievable with a modern cell phone. You can get some cheap little lenses that you can try out for your iPhone and I've done that before. They're pretty fun to play with. But it's definitely something that if you're just using your camera from your phone, it may not come out the same like this. So I just wanted to let you know that. But I would love for you to have fun and take some photos of your favorite florals. 15. Day 11 - Your Hands: Welcome to day 11. Today's prompt is, Your Hands. In this prompt, I want you to take a photo of your hands in any way that you possibly can. I know it might be a little difficult because you'll have to use one hand to take a photo if you decided to do it yourself or you might have to direct someone in the type of photo that you're looking for. First step, I have an example of one that I took, and I have an example of one that my husband took. As you can see here on the left, this is a photo that I was able to take with my iPhone, my smartphone. I just kind of lean back a little bit and held my handout far from my face and far from the phone, and I just snapped a shot, and that one, I wanted to have my sketchbook kind of in the background so you could see that I am sketching. The one on the right is the one that my husband took. It did take a lot of different photos to be able to get to the one that I really liked. As you take photos, you can maybe get different photos that will work for different circumstances. I don't mind taking those extra photos because usually there will be a handful that are really good and I have him do different things. That way I kind of have a mix of photos to use. Here are a couple of tips. First of all, I want you to take as many photos as you need, especially if you're taking the photos of your hand or your hands by yourself. Sometimes it's going to be tricky and you're going to have to try to do things from different angles. You're going to have to look at what you're doing and see if you like it and if you don't like it, make some tweaks. The next tip is to add some fun things in the background. That way you can show the context of your day, like I did here with my sketchbook. If I didn't have the sketchbook there, it would be a little bit more boring in my opinion, although it could still be a really beautiful photograph because there is a message on the mug there that says, "Hello darling." It could still be really pretty, but a plain white background for me would be too plain. The next tip that I want you to take away from this is to pay attention to the positioning of your fingers and your hands. By moving your hands around in your different shots, especially if someone is taking the photos for you, you can get a much better photo. For example, here, I really love this photo, but I do not like my fingers on the hand that's on the right. It just looks my fingers are clawed. Because of that, I didn't like this photo as much. I'm also covering up part of the mug. I loved the composition of this photo and I wish I could have told my husband how to recreate it exactly, but it's very difficult with somebody who is not used to doing photos. He did a great job of taking the photo, but my fingers were positioned poorly. Here I want to show you the difference between the two. You'll just have to pay attention. If you're directing somebody, ask them to take as many photos as possible and make sure that you are looking at the photos in between takes. If you move around or if you do something different in the photo, makes sure that you take multiple photos and that the person moves around to get it from multiple perspectives. Hopefully this is helpful. I'll see you in the prompt tomorrow. 16. Day 12 - In Your Sketchbook: Today's prompt is, in your sketch book. If you're not an artist, you can instead use your journal or maybe perhaps your planner. In this one, I am showing you two different views of my sketchbook. One has some props and things that make it feel a little more cozy and makes it a little more personable, and the other one on the right-hand side is just the sketchbook. Now you can do either of these. It doesn't really matter which one you choose. You can use them for different reasons on different occasions. I think that you can do these every day if you want if you are consistently drawing or you're consistently painting in your sketchbook and I don't think that anybody will be concerned about how often you are posting these. Just like some of the other prompts that I've suggested that you take over and over again. A tip for you is that you can show a finished sketch or you can show a work in progress. So this is something that I started and I didn't complete, but I decided to go ahead and use it in my photos. People love to see your creative process, they love to see where you're at in the process, and I think either way, it's great for you to take photos of whatever it is that you're creating. I also decided to take a couple of pictures of the outside of my sketchbook because you can allude to your creative practice without actually showing what you're working on. Here you can see two photos of my sketchbook and my drawing pen. Something I do want to point out here is that the colors are inconsistent, so if you're struggling with getting the colors to be consistent, what you would want to do is use a gray card. I do have a video in my gram, your Instagram, Course Hero, and Skillshare, where I talk all about using a gray card. So you can go to that video and check that out and that'll tell you how to do it. That's it for today's prompt. I will see you tomorrow. 17. Day 13 - Self Care: Day 13 is self-care. I have a couple of photos here that represent self-care to me. The first one is a wonderful Vegan cupcake that I got from Whole Foods plus some beautiful flowers. I love to buy myself flowers so I can feel like it's springtime, especially when it's not springtime quite yet. On the right-hand side, I like to paint my nails. Again, you can see here there are flowers blurred out in the background. There's a cup of tea blurred out in the background. One thing I do want to point out is that you can overlap your elements that you use in your photos and use them in different photos. There's nothing wrong with using things over and over again in your photos. It actually will help your brand to be strengthened because you're using similar items inside of different photos. That's the only tip I have for you today except for you to enjoy your self-care, because I want you to go out and just do something for yourself and not really worry too much about the photography today. 18. Day 14 - Location: Day 14 is location. Now with this one, I actually have several photos to show you and there's a reason behind it plus I have two unique challenges within this challenge. Challenge within a challenge. First step, here you see that I have a pairing of photos that I believe work really well together. On the left I have a sticker that I found on a door that says you are not alone, that I found to be really graphic and I really loved the contrast of the black and the white. Then on the right, it's the same, it's really graphic and I found that there was a great contrast with the black and the white in the photo. Now the next pairing I have here, it's a group of lanterns in Philadelphia and there are some beautiful pink flowers that are going down the street. Then on the right, it's a close-up of the flowers. What I want you to do for the first challenge within a challenge, is to find some photos in a location that you can pair together like this. What I want you to do is take a photo and then try to take other photos that go well with that first one. That is challenge number one, challenge number two is for you to actually use locations on Instagram. What you'll want to do is if you're doing a story, you can add in the little sticker that says the location, and I'll show you a couple of examples here. That way if you're using this, people will see your photos and they'll come back to your Instagram in the area that you're in. I just recommend be sure not to do it anywhere that you don't want people to know that your at. If it's inside your home, I probably would not use that location. Then also, you want to make sure that maybe you add the location and you add the photo after you leave a place rather than while you're there. If I'm with my husband, I don't care, I'll add the location and I'll add the photo because I'm with my husband and I feel secure to do that. But sometimes I will add the photos to Instagram and then add the location afterwards so that nobody knows where I'm at until after I've left that place. But I want you to try this out because it is a great way to attract new people back to your Instagram profile. Those are the two unique challenges within this challenge. I just want you to get out there to take some photos of a different location, then you might be used to going to and just have fun with it. 19. Day 15 - Daily To Do List: The prompt for day 15 is daily to-do list. Now here you can see I have a couple of things going on. I have one on the left that is a paper that you pull off of a pad that you can write down your to-dos, and I wrote down one to do on that and then on the right-hand side, I actually just have this tray that has the words daily planner on it and it has a cute little illustration of today's projects. Then I have a stone that I thought the colors went well with this little tray. I decided to add that in and with my pen and then in the background you can kind of see my daily to-do list. Now, I want to talk about where some people might be private and not want to add any information or let anybody see your to-dos. That's kind of how I am for the most part, I don't want people to actually see inside my planner, but I don't mind if I do it on this little notepad where it can just pull off one and put down, to do that. I don't mind people seeing. If you're a private person, you can do that or you can add a sticky note over any personal items. You can also just show what you're willing to show like I did here. I wanted to make sure to tell you this because it may feel like a little secretive or like you don't really want to share this thing with the world and if you feel that way, that's okay. Share what you're willing to share and keep private. What you want to keep private, you don't have to show everything to everyone and I really recommend doing what feels good to you rather than just doing something because it is what everybody else's doing. Those are my tips for today and I will see you in the next prompt. 20. Day 16 - Morning Walk: The prompt for day 16 is your morning walk. What you can do is just head out. If you live in a neighborhood, you can take pictures in your neighborhood, or you can go to a park or anywhere else that you want to go to that you think would have fun photos for you to take. For me, I took about an hour to do this prompt. Now, on my walk, I found a lot of different things. But here you can see I have pairs side-by-side two photos of flowers. One, it was down by the stream and you can see the water where the light is catching on the little waves as the water goes down the stream, and then on the right-hand side, I took my camera and I pointed upward into a tree that was really tall compared to me. That enabled me to get that really blue sky for that picture. I also have here on the left-hand side, a tree that was broken in half and I thought that the bark looked really cool. The jagged lines with that other tree in the background, I found that to be really interesting. So I decided to take a photo of that. On the right-hand side, I kept seeing these dancing in the wind and I felt that they were really beautiful, so I took a photo of that. Of course, you can always take photos that are far away and photos that are a close-up. I personally have a zoom lens for my camera that enables it to be really rather easy for me to do this. But you can do the same thing with your phone. If you take a photo of something often to the distance and then you get close to something. Now you may not be able to get close to something like wildlife, but you may be able to zoom in to a flower or get up-close to like the bark of a tree, and that will allow you to get a difference where you have something that zoomed out and something that's zoomed in. Just think about, how can I get something that is far off in the distance, and how can I get up-close to something to make it work? Now here's some tips. First of all, I want you to look all around you. Go off the beaten path, go off to find things that are in quiet areas because that's often where you might find something really interesting. When I went off the beaten path, I found a lot of wildlife, like I said, and I was able to also catch pictures of things that I just would not have known were there because I wouldn't have gone off the path. Be careful though when you're going off the path, make sure that it's allowed and make sure that you're not going into anything that's going to cause you any danger. But definitely try to wander off a little bit to find something unique that maybe you wouldn't see if you just stick to the main path. The next thing that I really want to emphasize is to take the photos that are zoomed in and zoomed out. Like I said, this particular photo I took with my DSLR. The type of camera and lens that you have can determine the quality of your photos when it comes to something that is zoomed in. iPhones I find really don't take the best zoomed in photos, but again, moving closer in proximity, so taking a step closer to something can help you to take sometimes a more beautiful photograph or taking a step back from something can also do the same. So make sure that you are trying this and testing it out and seeing what works. This particular photo, like I said, was taken with my zoom lens and my iPhone would not have worked in this particular photo. I was down lower, this tree was quite high and the bird was up there quite high. I was actually far where I could point my lens, where it looked like I'm almost even with this bird where I'm not, I'm actually lower than the bird. I find that your iPhone will not be able to do photos like this unless you're able to get up-close, which often you can't do with a photo of a bird because they fly away before you're able to get too close, and also you don't want to bother them as much as possible. If you have a zoom lens, you can go ahead and try something like this. If not, just try to capture other things where you're able to walk up close to them. Now, the last thing that I want to talk to you about is the difference between this technique that I used in this photo where you can see the flowers to the right and you can see the water with the light hitting it in the background. On the left, you can see that there's this dreamy yellow haze. Now what I did to create this was I actually took a flower and I put it up close to the lens of my camera. Now trying to replicate it with the iPhone and you can see what the result was on the right. It's not the same like hazy type look, but it does bring in a lens flare, which is interesting. This is something that you can play with. You can see here that I am playing with it. I have the flower and I'm showing it to you and I'm bringing it in really close to where the lens is on my iPhone. You just have to know where your camera is and you just have to bring it up close, then you have to maybe move it around as you're looking to see where you can get it in a place that looks interesting. This is something that you could maybe, perhaps try as you are out on your morning walk. If you find a flower and you want to pick it, and then you want to try to do this just go ahead and follow these steps and see what you come up with. 21. Day 17 - Motion: Day 17 is a fun one, it is motion. So the way that I did this was I used boomerang that is on Instagram. Now, you can do it this way or you can try to capture motion in another way, you can imply motion just by showing yourself doing something that will be in motion or you can do something like what I did. So with this, I just decided to take a bunch of Instagram stories, essentially, and what you can do is you can go into your Instagram stories and you can choose the boomerang option and all you need to do is before you post it, if you don't want to post it right away, you can actually download it. So there's a little button to the right of where you can click out of Instagram stories, and it's a down arrow that basically is signifying for you to download it to your phone. So you're saving it into your photos. That's it for today's prompt and I will see you tomorrow. 22. Day 18 - Work In Progress: Day 18 is Work-in-Progress. Now, this is whatever you want to show that's a work in progress. Here, you can see I have my photos as a work in progress, so I actually had them printed out. There's a company called Artifact Uprising, and I got them printed out from there. Then, I took photos of the photos that I took. I am showing you here, on one side, I have the photos spread out, and then, I am showing you one of my favorite lenses, and then, the same on the right-hand side, except that I put in the checklist to show that I'm checking off stuff and that it's a work in progress. I still have more photos to take, but I'm getting there. I wanted to share my work in progress. Yours can be something that you're painting, something that you're drawing, something that maybe you've created on Illustrator. It could be something that you are baking. It could be something that you have in your house. I hope you enjoy this prompt, and I will see you tomorrow. 23. Day 19 - Your Home: Day 19 is your home. When it comes to your home, there might be a lot of opportunities for you to take photos. Here you can see I have one photo where I have my typewriter in view and then I've actually moved up above the typewriter, I'm shooting down in the photo on the right, so that you can see that coffee mug a little bit better. Then here you can see in the next photo that I'm taking a photo of the same little space, but I'm taking the photo down. So you can see this cute little cactus that I have and my candle that I have. That allows you to see just a different perspective. Then actually, you can't see it in any of these photos that I have taken here, but up above the couch, there are these big canvases of my husband and I in our home. You can see that just by moving around, you can, first of all, sometimes get a better shot. So simply by moving around, you can instantly make a shot look much more lovely because you're highlighting something different. In this shot, I'm focusing here on the flowers instead of anything else, and they just instantly becomes a beautiful photo. Now, you can take these multiple shots like I did, or you have moved around and it's allowed you to take multiple shots in the same small space. You can use these for different things. Now, I didn't go to any other room of my house. I didn't go anywhere else. I just stayed in one small area and I was able to get a handful of pictures. I want you to stretch yourself and try to do something similar. 24. Day 20 - Favorite Things: Day 20 is your favorite things. You can gather up all your favorite things or you can just gather some things that you really love and put them into a photograph. Here I have on the left washy tape. I cannot leave my goals without getting washy tape. I thought that would be a fun one. Plus I love taking pictures of washy tape, it's just fun and I really love the one that has the little doggies on it. On the right-hand side, I decided to photograph my favorite snack. You can also think about different things that are favorites in your life and photograph those. You can think about your favorite food. You can think about your favorite music and see if there's some way for you to photograph that. You can think about anything that would be a favorite and those would be valid for you to take photos of. I want you to go ahead and think about it and then go ahead and start taking a bunch of photos as many as you can that encapsulate this idea of favorite things. 25. Bonus Prompt - Altered: For this bonus prompt, you're going to alter a photograph. You can do this in a bunch of different ways. What I did was I took two photos and I put them together. I used Photoshop. You could try to use an app on your phone, or you can try to use a free editing software for photos, whatever works for you. I just brought in my photo into Photoshop and then I put another photo on top. That way I was combining both of the images, and I used the blend modes in order to get the photo to show up. I also combined a graphic of old texts that I purchased on Creative Market and then I just combined them all together and created something new. I want you to have fun. Maybe you're just going to put text over top. Maybe you're going to add some filters. Maybe you're going to change things and alter things. Whatever you want to do, this is free for you to be very creative. All I want you to do today is basically alter a photograph and just have fun with it. That's it for your prompt. I'll see you in the next one. 26. Day 21 - Warmth: Day 21. The prompt today is warmth. Now, I took a couple of photos at a cafe. I bet she didn't think I would be at cafe. That seems to be a common theme for me, but to me, warmth is a nice cup of chai. You can see here, I have a couple of pictures of myself. Then, I also took a couple of other pictures. I took a picture of my husband's cookie, and then this little corner that I found where there was this warm brick, and then the table in the stool also were warm colors. The tips I have for you with this prompt is that you can take photos of something that makes you feel warmth physically, like a cup of chai, or you can take photos of whatever it gives you a warm emotion. So there's something like cookies that gives you a warm emotion, then you can also take a photo of that. Also, you can think of warmth in terms of color like I did with this other photo. Let your imagination run wild and I can't wait to see what you come up with. I'll see you in the next prompt tomorrow. 27. Day 22 - Sourcing Inspiration: Day 22 is sourcing inspiration and for this prompt, you can do quite a few things with this. First up, I have my husband looking at records, because records are his source of inspiration. When we went into this record store, I knew that this would work well for this prompt. I have a couple of photos of him looking through and he likes to pick up the records and look at them so that's what I decided to take a photo of here. You can, of course, take photos of yourself looking for inspiration or of somebody else looking for inspiration to fulfill this prompt. The next photos and I have here are spots that I found to be really inspiring. These are things that I can use when I decide I'm going to write something or if I'm going to go back and do some art, I can use these later. You can take photos to give yourself reminders that you can use later in art, or that you can use later to create other photos. Let's say, for instance that I want to go back to this door and I love the color. It's very similar to my brand colors. This would be a great place for me to take some head shots later on so I can take some photos of the door that will also go with the head shots and I would take and it can just serve as a reminder that when I get ready to do head shots, I can go back to this location. I also have a couple of photos here. One is in a used bookstore and one is in front of my cute little antique store. These also can serve as inspiration for me later on, maybe I can think of some ideas for what I would do for other photos. Maybe these are just inspiring to me and they signify something in my daily life. Whenever it may be, you can really go any which way with this prompt. I would love to see what you do with this. Be sure to add your photos into the projects section so that I can see them or you can put them on Instagram and use the hashtag #pydskillshare. 28. Day 23 - Your Office or Studio: Day 23 is your office or your studio. So if you have a little desk or office space, or if you have a studio space where you like to paint or draw, you can of course take photos of that. Here you can see my office space on the left, and then you can see some books that I have on the shelf behind this chair. I would like to tell you when it comes to tips that whenever a take a lot of photos with physical space, I do like to move things around and make the space look a little bit more appealing. What I like to do is I like to look at things. I probably will take a couple of pictures actually to be honest just to start, and then I will evaluate where things are located, and I might move things around a little bit. For instance, with this layout, I really did not like where the lamp was originally. It was slightly behind the computer at first. It looked like there was just like this white thing coming out from underneath the computer, so it was confusing as to what that was. I just moved the light over a little bit so you can see that it's a lamp, and then I also pushed the chair in so that you can see that this is a place where I sit. I felt like that that made this photo a lot stronger. What you can do is move things around and that will help you to make a stronger composition. I also took a photo of a smaller vignette where these books are. That way you can see a different section of my office. You can do that with lots of things in your office. We'll actually be doing a little bit more of that in tomorrow's prompt. 29. Day 24 - On Your Desk: Today's prompt were diving into what's on your desk. This can be your desk as a whole if you want or you can do as I did and just take photos of a small vignette or a small section of your desk, I have these beautiful flowers were not key-less, I think is how you say it and I had this candle that I lit and so I wanted to show you here, this is just a small little portion of my desk. You can do like I said, your desk as a whole or you can do physical things that are on your desk and what I want you to really concentrate on here is, I want you to look for opportunities to zoom into a particular object. The subject matter that you highlight in the photo, it might tell a different story depending on what you choose to put in the spotlight. Here, I'm choosing just to highlight the matches and not the other things. But then you can also shoot various different shots of one scene. Here I'm showing you more context. I'm showing you the flowers with the candle, with the matches is instead of just the matches like I showed you in the last photo. You can get multiple photos this way and what this really does for you is it allows you to have a bunch of photos with the same type of vignette that you can use and a lot of different places. It will also make everything come together a little bit more because you are using the similar items in different photos but just different angles and that allows you to do a bit more like you can post a bit more and you have completely different photos. This is a really great way to make things more cohesive like on Instagram. That's it for today. I will see you in tomorrow's prompt. 30. Day 25 - Whole Body Shot: Day 25 is maybe a challenging one for most people. It's a whole body selfie or a whole buddy shot. Here, I didn't actually do these myself because I decided to go out on the town and I get embarrassed to be taking photos when I'm out and it's just myself and my husband. I feel like people are looking at me for some reason. I just have him take the photo. It actually makes the whole process a lot quicker, but if you had a nice place like in your backyard or if you had a lovely spot in your home, you could always go ahead and just take out your tripod. You can put your camera or you can put your iPhone on the tripod that you have and you can set that up and then allow yourself to use the timer or use a little remote where you can take the photo by yourself. Although, I do have to tell you that does take a lot of effort, especially if you're using your DSLR, because you might need to figure out the focus. It could take a little bit longer. Here though, like I did, I had my husband take a lot of these photos. Here you can see I just went out to the town and then another one is, I'm in a field and I'm just allowing my photo to be taken. Something I wanted to give you for tips here is to create these triangle shapes when you can, because it's just more flattering. Here you can see my hand on my hip. There's like a little triangle there that happens between my arm and the side of my body and then where I'm crossing my legs, there's a little triangle that happens there. These triangles are much more appealing than if you're just standing straight. This will just be more flattering and more flattering pose and it's actually more interesting. If I'm just standing there straight, it might be a little boring, but by putting my knee up the way that I have and crossing my ankles and then putting the hand on my hip. That just makes this photo a little bit more interesting. When in doubt, you can use black and white photos. I really love black and white photos. I think that they are really flattering for most people. You can go ahead and give it a try. I just used a filter on Instagram actually so I opened up my Instagram stories and I had my husband point at me and then I just use the black and white filter and I saved it to my phone and I've shown you how to do that in a past video. That's it for day 25. I'll see you in tomorrow's prompt. 31. Day 26 - Cozy With Family: Day 26 is one of my favorite prompts. It is, Cozy With Family. I love to do these types of photos because I can get my husband involved in the photos and it can be quite fun. So here you can see we are cozy together on the couch, we're reading, he's reading the newspaper, I'm reading my little book here. Then, we have another photo here where we are looking at each other and we've got our doggies in the mix. That can actually be quite challenging. So what I would recommend to you when you're doing these types of photos is to use a timer. So use a timer on your phone, use a timer on your camera to be able to get more than one person in the shot, especially if you don't have a third party there who can take the photo. You could ask a kid to take a photo or you could ask your spouse take a photo of you with the kid, whatever will work, but here, it's just my husband and I, and our doggies. So we had to use a timer. Of course, most of the shots that we took we threw away, but the timer helped us to take several shots and framed these photos in several different ways so that we could get a few that we really liked. So this one that you see here, actually we didn't use a timer. That was me just using my iPhone and I had to position it back away from us, which was actually challenging. Then here, you can see that this is a photo with my husband and our dogs. This one was using a timer and just be okay with throwing away many of the photos that you take, especially if you have a couple of four-legged friends or even a couple of kidos in the shot, because it just, it can be complicated to get them to cooperate. So here, I really loved this photo. I loved how I was sitting, I loved how my husband was sitting, but the dogs are paying attention to my husband and not looking at the camera, which is virtually impossible to get them looking in the right direction, but you just see blobs there instead of seeing their faces. So they're not the best photo here, but I still love it a lot and this is one that I would just keep for myself. So basically, what I'm saying here is that if you want to get a shot with kids or if you want to get a shot with animals, it might be complicated and be okay with taking a lot of photos. So that's it for today's prompt, I will see you tomorrow. 32. Day 27 - What's For Dinner: Day 27 is what's for dinner. It's a pretty straightforward prompt, but I do want you to think outside the box with this. Here I have two photos. I have the first photo where it's actually the things that you use to make dinner, so cookbook, a spoon, some spices, there's that photo that you can take, and then on the right is actual dinner. What I would recommend to you when you're doing this is to use plates, cups, bowls, whatever it is that you're using, that are plain in color so that you can highlight the food itself. I actually purchased my plates in a white color because I knew that I would be taking photos, and I did this a long time ago, so it's not like I just went out and bought these, I just purposefully bought plates and cups and things, but you can get them really affordably, you could even go to a good whale or something like that, a thrift shop where you can purchase white stuff, probably for fairly cheap, but you can also use solid colors, so whatever color really you like, as long as it's not really patterned and really busy, it would make great beautiful photos. What I would say to you is to go ahead and find something maybe that will work for your brand or that will work for what you hope to achieve. Maybe you don't want something that is like a ceramic plate, maybe you would prefer a glass or maybe you would prefer something wooden, just think about what it is that you like and then go for that aesthetic. Now, another tip, like I said, think outside the box this is making dinner or using ingredients for dinner, maybe you can also shop at the grocery store and get a really fun shot there. What's for dinner? It seems like a straightforward and you might just take photos of your dinner, but actually you construct yourself with this and try to think outside of the box and come up with an idea that maybe is something that you didn't first go to in your mind. That's really the point of this challenge, is for you to start to develop your artistic eye when it comes to photography, and for you to think outside the box and make photography more of a challenge for yourself where you are being really creative with it. I hope that you're able to achieve that today, and I will see you in tomorrow's prompt. 33. Day 28 - Your Friends: Day 28 as your friends. I decided to do this of my four-legged friends. My two little doggies that I have, I decided to take photos of them. I just did that because I didn't think most of my friends would want to be in my Skillshare class but you can take photos of your actual friends and use them wherever you want as long as you have your friends' permission. I'm going to give you a couple of tips if you are going to photograph your four-legged friend or your furry friends. So you're going to want to take photos and bribe your animals probably with lots of treats. So often I do have to hold up a treat. I hold it near the camera If I'm using my phone, I prop their treat right up at the top with my fingers and then I take the photo. That will cause them to look right at you. I also try to take advantage of the times when they're being co-operative like in this photo, my little doggy here, she was just sitting there sweetly and I just moved her over a little tiny bit so that she would be on this blanket. Then she looked right up at me and I snapped a photo. Take advantage. She was sleepy, I think. That made it a little bit easier. Of course, like I said, you can take photos of your friends who are people, or you can take photos of your friends who are animals too. Whatever you want to do it's up to you. I can't wait to see what you come up with and I'll see you in tomorrow's prompt. 34. Day 29 - Your Products: Day 29 is Your Products. Now, since I don't have any physical products, I'm actually using a couple of examples from clients of mine. Here on the left you can see a beautiful whale sketch that foxbearandme did, and on the right you can see this hand lettered heart that amandasuehowell did and you can see their handles there. What I want you to get out of this is that you need to share your work with the world and you need to share it often. You can share it honestly more than just one day a month. I know that this is just one prompt out of many but really you should be sharing your work every other post or however often feels good to you, but make sure that you're sharing it probably more often than you are now, let's be honest. What I want you to do is take photos of your lovely beautiful artwork or if you have other types of physical products, then make sure you're taking photos of that as well and I will see you in tomorrow's prompt. 35. Day 30 - Getting Creative: Congratulations for making it to day 30. Day 30's prompt is getting creative. What I want you to do here is to just think outside the box and do something fun that maybe you've never done before. So here you can see on the left, I have a photo where I decided to take these flowers and use them as a background. I had had this idea for a while, but I didn't know how I was going to make it work, so I just went ahead and I got some flowers. I found some that were this beautiful purple, and then I have these white pumpkins, and I wanted to see if I could get a photo with the flowers behind the pumpkins or kind of surrounding the pumpkins. So I stretched myself with this and try to think outside the box and do something that I had as a picture in my head, but I wasn't even quite sure how it would come out in the long run. On the right, you can see I have this beautiful little star box that a painted with this color that I like to use in my brand. What I did was I painted this specifically for the photo. Then in the background, there is background that I made that has these triangles that I just took their stickers and I put them on the background to see what that would look like. Here, there's also a couple of photos, one where I painted a painting that is just a very quickly 10 minute painting that I made with colors that I really am drawn to and I just did it for the photo, not for any other reason. Then on the right side, I am showing you that I've used these paints to make custom backgrounds for my business. So what I want you to do is do something intentionally to be creative, to make your photos more fun to shoot. You can paint a background to match your brand, or you can get out the Mod Podge and make a collage background. You can also make a background out of leaves or flowers, or you can take this prompt another way and you can just do something out of the ordinary. Maybe you've had an idea about trying something before for a photograph but you haven't been sure of how to make it work. Treat this as an experiment to just do something that it may work. It may not, but you are actually just getting creative and making it work to the best of your ability. That's it for this 30 day photo challenge. I thank you so much for participating and I will see you in a couple of bonus prompts.