Week 5 flew by!  It started off with creating a group for a radio show and come up with a team name.  I am now part of The 5th Dimension!

@cogdog : @l_hampson23 @caseyragg @rwyrough @dylangott1 and I are called 5th dimension!

— Fairuz Maggio(@fairuzmaggio) February 15, 2013

We were given tips on photography this week and I incorporated them into my Daily Creates (Click the link for more detail!).  Perspective, Pickiness, and Light were my focus.

Perspective allows you to look at things differently and therefore give you a whole new story.  It changes the meaning of the photo along with what the viewer notices.

Pickiness causes you to really think.  You need to have an idea in your head of want you want and how you are going to get it.  This picture and tip ended up being my favorite.  It was helpful and fun.  For this tip/experience and many others check out How We are Becoming better Photographers!

Light is key when it comes to photography.  You need to know where it is and how to manipulate it.  Playing with shadows is fun as well.

Photoblitz!  This was amazing.  It was my favorite part of DS106 this week by far!  I conducted mine in my house, but I was still able to get creative and have fun with it.  I was not able to get all the picture ideas in 20 minutes because I was being too picky.  Here are my favorite 5, how my experience went and what I think of each picture!

You can see all of my Photography from this week on my flickr.  I “spiffed” it up a little bit.  I was having a hard time figuring everything out along with being sick.  I plan on making it more fun very soon!  In the mean time check out all of my new sets while you’re there.  I learned how to embed the sets too (proof here and below).  Here a sneek peek!

I did 12 stars worth of photo assignments and even created my own for people to do!  It is a photo collage using flickr and editing using each letter of your name to represent you!  I ranked it with 3 stars because of the multiple programs to use as well as the need to search and create. (So in a way I did 15 stars of work).

Here’s mine: 

The other assignments I did can be found under Assignments/Visual (or click the links): Averaging – This allowed me to use new tools such as bulkr and old tools, picasa, in a whole new way, Common Light – I took everyday objects and manipulated tones and light to come up with a whole new way to look at the mundane, Splash of Color – This showed me how to create the pictures I love to look at.  The ones that are black and white except for that one part that’s in color and really stands out, Valentine’s – Not only did I have to pick a picture, but I had to tell a story by adding text.  It is fun to look at others of the same picture and see how people can interpret the same image in so many different ways, Buddy – This was an assignment I have done many times just on my own for fun, so I made it harder on myself by bring along a buddy a little bit bigger than normal.

Each of these assignments expanded my photography, editing, and story telling skills in different ways.  They were unique and difficult in their own ways while still being fun!

When I finally finished all of my work I looked around at my fellow ds106er’s blogs.  Lara did a cool assignment with flowers that she edited to look like pencil drawings.  I had a hard time deciding if I like the originals or “sketches” better.  Fairuz also did the splash assignment, but she used a different photo editor than I did.  I asked her about the experience she had with it.  I made comments on Dylan’s blog about his flickr slideshow and how interesting his pictures were.  I love cooking and a lot of his photographs centered around that.  I was not able to find any of this weeks assignments on Watkin’s blog so I comments on some previous ones.

I had a blast this week.  I am getting more comfortable and learning so much about programs and the inter web in general.  I am learning from my group members as much if not more than all the tutorials I look at.  I am impressing myself as well as my friends and family.  Who knew all of this was possible, and that someone as computer inept as me could do it and do it well.  It was challenging having to surf the internet and find out how to do things on my own that were not in tutorials, but I was able to do those as well.  I am viewing things in a whole new light, literally and figuratively.  I love how perspective and thought can create a whole new story and that something as simple as pen can be looked at in a whole new way just by pressing a view different buttons (camera and computer).