Project 52: Week 1 - Hope

As I said on Sunday, I'm trying something a little different this year, as I successfully completed Project 365 last year (even if I did complete cock up my number of said photos). I became aware that I seemed to be posting a lot of photos that I had taken just for the sake of taking them, purely because I had to take a photo for the day.

Not that there's anything wrong with a bunch of iPhone photos, but it seems a bit boring after a while. Just as photos of whatever book I'm reading can be useful for when I'm posting a photo for my book review, but it's difficult to find something to say about them when you're ending up with one a week.

All the same, most weeks I've checked the BBC: We set the theme; you take the pictures page to see what the theme for the week has been. There have been a number of times when I've thought I'd take a picture and submit it, but just haven't gotten around to it.

Until now. I'm loosely following the themes that they suggest each week, and when I think I've gotten something okay, I might even submit it to see if it'll be featured. This week's theme is Hope and so I started out looking for words that said 'hope' in books, on cards and out and about. Then I opened the wardrobe and spotted a little bag tucked away in one corner and I was inspired.

I tried taking the photo several times during the week, but I was struggling because I was taking it during the evening when I didn't have any natural light so was having to use the flash. I didn't seem to be able to avoid a sort of blow-out on the light areas. I experimented with different layouts and positions for it, but then took the actual photo this morning when I would be around at mid-day when I'd have better light. It worked out well in the end because I had a sudden burst of inspiration and realised that blue and pink would make a better backdrop than just plain white.

Week 1: Hope

I thought these work well for the theme of Hope because I've kept them with the hope that some day we'll have a little pair of feet to fill them. They're so soft and tiny. I bought them when we started what could probably be termed 'our IVF journey', basically going over to the hospital to answer a bunch of questions after we'd been referred for IVF.

It's now been eight months since we went onto the list and we've still got another sixteen months to go before we're anywhere near the top of the list. That won't even be the start of the IVF, that'll be the start of checking that my body is okay for IVF, because the reason we can't conceive is due to something that will only get worse with time and in the two years we'll be waiting, changes could take place that will cause more delays. It's easy to feel a little bit hopeless at times, but I'm glad I've kept these little booties, they give me something to look forward to and a reminder of what we're waiting for.

As for the photo itself. It bothers me a little that there's a huge obvious wrinkle behind the booties. That's actually one of my t-shirts propped up on the windowsill and the pink is my nightie, hehe. It was a bit grey outside, so I couldn't get quite as much light as I would have liked. Looking at it now, I wish I'd gotten a bit of white paper to hold up on the left hand side to reflect some of the light back because it's a bit dark on that side.

Next week the BBC's theme is 'Skies', that'll be a bit tricky because 1) I live in Scotland and it's winter, which usually means that they sky is a murky sort of grey colour, and 2) it's still very dark on a morning before I go to work and it's pretty dark when I get home at night. All the same, I'm looking forward to the challenge of figuring out what my picture will be, and hopefully I'll learn something from my camera while I'm trying to get the sort of photo I want.

Or maybe I'll find another weekly photo challenge and do that week's challenge instead, hehe.