by Terri
As you may
recall reading in several FOL blog posts in the past, the group of women who
collaborate in writing this blog first became acquainted in Tracey Clark’s
Picture series of classes on Big Picture Scrapbooking. The first was Picture Spring in 2010. When I
signed up, I didn’t know anybody else who was taking the class but I had
admired Tracey for quite a while and that was enough for me. However, I entered that class with a little
bit of caution.
Although I
had taken some online classes in photography and Photoshop, this was the first
time I had been in a group where we were communicating with each other,
commenting on each other’s photos and receiving comments on ours. This was
seven years ago before Instagram and I wasn’t on Facebook back then either.
“Talking” to people on the internet was still a new experience for me. But
before long I was completely in love with the whole experience!
 |
| "Beginnings" from Picture Spring 2010 |
My friends
would ask me what this class was teaching and my response was, and I still
remember it well, there isn’t a lot of teaching but there’s a whole lot of
learning going on. We took a daily prompt that Tracey gave us, made our photograph
and posted it, looked through and commented on other people’s photos and
received comments on our photos. The learning came from the daily prompt to get
out there and take photos, seeing what other people were shooting and being
inspired by them, and receiving comments from others on our photos. Like I
said, a whole new experience for me.
 |
| Photos taken during Picture Spring 2010 |
After
Picture Spring came Picture Summer and many familiar faces from the earlier
class were there. I was a little more
comfortable with the process and the other people in the class began to feel
like friends. And I witnessed an amazing thing happening. Because we were
shooting daily, we all started to see ours, as well as each other’s, photos
improving. It was proof that daily use of your camera, trying different things
and viewpoints, lighting situations and focus points, was a sure way to improve
your photography.
 | ||
| "Hearts" from Picture Spring 2010 |
By the time
we had completed Picture Summer, Fall, Winter and the Holidays it appeared that
the adventure was coming to an end. We
all said, “Oh, no! What are we going to do without our daily prompt? What are
we going to do without each other!” Well,
you probably know what came next -- the idea to start this blog and everyone
who we asked to join us were people we only “knew” from Tracey’s classes. Of course, now most of us have met in person
but back then we were just online friends.
Now it all
comes full circle. Tracey is reintroducing Picture Spring on a site called
teachable.com. We will be given daily
prompts just like we were seven years ago at the beginning of this journey and
all of us are going to be there just like old times!
Class starts
today. I think you can still sign
up. If you are interested in finding out
more, visit https://tracey-clark.teachable.com/p/picture-spring-a.
Any questions you might have should be answered there. I’m telling you this not as a promotion for
Tracey’s class but because I know how much we all enjoyed taking her Picture series
of classes and if you have not had the chance to do that, I didn’t want you to
miss out. Hope to see you in class!
And now that
I have your full attention (I do, don’t I?), just as reminder that our Monthly
Focus for May is “Leading Lines”. You can read more about it under the Monthly
Focus at the top of this page and you can post your leading lines photos both
in the Instagram group #focusingonlife and our Flickr group. Hope to see you
there too!
