12 Feb focus52|2012 {week seven} february 12 to 18

Welcome to Week Seven, 52’rs! How did you enjoy our still life prompt last week? Browsing through your blogs and flickr, I noticed a lot of you mentioning that you had to step outside of your comfort zone for the prompt and that’s GOOD! Growing and learning, that’s what it’s all about. You need to step outside of your box and try something new every now and then.

Now, unless you’ve been hiding under a rock (and some of us would like to!) you’re well aware what’s going on this week. Love is in the air, people.

Apparently.

February 14th. You either love it or you hate it. And to that end, you have two choices for your prompt this week (because I’m a little afraid of you anti-Valentine peoples) …

Love. How would you capture it this week? You could choose to go the Valentine route, or choose to portray love in an entirely different manner. Perhaps a scene you spy on the street or at the mall (there’s plenty of discombobulated men running around trying to find the perfect Valentine – that could be fun!), maybe an expression of love, a symbol of love, a person/place/thing you love … so many possibilities.

And then there’s Red. Yummy, scrumptious red. My friend, Katrina Kennedy, introduced me to the Red Rule some time ago. It’s simple really … if you see red, shoot it! Red adds that punch of interest and draws your eye. It can add that something special to your composition and take it from ‘good’ to ‘WOW’. And if you’re looking for a bit of photo inspiration this week, there’s an entire flickr group dedicated to the Red Rule.

A few tips when photographing the color red:

• Watch your exposure. Red tones are easy to blow out and you don’t want to lose detail in your shot.
• Watch your white balance. Orange is not red. Likewise, don’t go too cold and end up with a purple toned red and a blue background. Or? Shoot in RAW format and be happy :)
• Lighting – I find red easiest to capture in it’s truest form using natural lighting, but that’s just a personal preference. If you’re using artificial lighting, get your white balance right (or again, shoot in RAW format)

That’s about it, I think. Fun topics this week and I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

Whatever you choose to do this week, follow the prompt or no, come back here and link up your work when you’re done (weeks run Sunday to Saturday, don’t forget!). Links must be to the direct URL of your actual work, not just to the site it’s posted in, and may be a link to your blog post or to your flickr photo. Also, please don’t link and run – try to find some time to visit at least a few of your fellow 52’ers. That’s half the fun! And don’t forget the flickr pool!

Remember, you do not need to use the prompt in order to come back here and share.

Have fun and have a LOVEly week (sorry … couldn’t resist)