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SPC #4 - last enclosed (1 tree, 2 baskets)

First, Self Portrait Challenge, August, final week (so you get all the remaining ones I've taken):

enclosed in a tree
As a child I really adored climbing trees, at every opportunity.

basket
In a laundry basket, with my little boy. (It could be a double challenge! see next month's SPC theme, below.) By the way, a laundry basket is THE BEST TOY EVER, at least right now in our house.

laundry
Not my best angle, but the most interesting of the shots I tried. (Plus in most of them you couldn't see the laundry basket/bag properly.) Taken with the timer. Hmm... I appear very tall...

September's theme is "self portrait 'with someone.'" Much fun to be had. And you should totally go take a look at some of the other portraits: so much beauty, humor, reflection. This week I particularly like this one (gorgeous photo), and this one (love the idea!).

I'm totally jazzed to have had a featured photo last week on SPC! That, and reading some of the Sunday Slices features, made me consider talking about why I do this, why I want to.

I first read about Self Portrait Challenge (back when it was Self Portrait Tuesday on blogspot), on Ali Edwards' blog. Then this month I decided to finally actually try it out, have some fun with it. This month I've also been doing a photo-a-day project, well, really a scrapbook-page-a-day (sort of, except I don't actually make the page each day, since my printer is on the fritz), okay, let's call it a Month in our Lives Project, wherein I take lots of pics, at least one per day, and have been planning and will be making a small album to represent our daily lives this month.

And I think that kind of thing is what appeals to me about SPC. A somewhat ordinary slice of life, of me at this time. Guidelines that give a little structure. The opportunity to try being a little artistic, a little creative and even symbolic in composing the photograph, rather than just snapping away.

I take these (so far) with an Olympus Camedia D-560 zoom (it's a digital point and shoot, but with decent 10x optical zoom). I've been interested in photography for years really, but am woefully ignorant of most technical aspects. I want to start correcting that situation, and am saving hard for a Nikon D50, a sort of beginner digital SLR. (I've talked about this before: here and here, for example.)

Self portraits are often the only way that I get included in any pictures, and no matter how dissatisfied I may be with my appearance, I want myself and my kids to be able to see me in 20 or 30 years: a young wife and mother and artist.

I really like all three of your pictures. They capture the energy and fun of being a mom, remembering your kid self very effectively. It is the same thing for me too, self portraits are the only pictures of me since i always take them of everyone else. Finally the kids are getting old enough to hand the camera to and let them snap pics, that's how I got my selfportrait this week!

Aren't the self-portrait challenges fun? One of these days I will be brave enough to post online.

I am the same as you, taking a photo of myself is the only way I get any photos of me.

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