I'm finally just about caught up with my 52 week project. Sometimes I took more than one picture a day to get caught up and stick with the themes. One great thing about this project is that I'm taking out my camera more to capture our daily life so that I have more than just iPhone pictures. So even when it doesn't fit with the theme, I still take it out for personal use at least once a week. Here are the next five images in my project.

Week 13 | Solitude - Car Company

My three year old is obsessed with cars. He has big cars with opening doors, small Hotwheels cars, Cars cars, and a few other random police cars and the like thrown in there. When he's playing quietly by himself, he is most likely "reading" his books or playing with his cars. He will often lay down on the floor when playing with his cars and I knew I wanted to capture it for this theme. 

Week 13 | Solitude - Car CompanyCopyright 2015 Kimberly Tank Art & Photography

Week 14 | Love - A Boy & His Dog

This is Zoe, my 8.5 year old German Shedder Shepherd who is a retired therapy dog. Back when I was teaching, I trained and certified Zoe as a therapy dog with TDI (Therapy Dogs International) and brought her into my class on Fridays during my planning period to use her with my struggling readers to help give them confidence in their reading and help them become more fluent. Zoe has always been the perfect therapy dog, just sitting there while the kids read to her, and is very tolerant and great with young kids. After I quit teaching, I brought her back to my former school the following year and she worked with the special education students. The first time I saw my son grab a book and go sit with her to "read" at the age of one, I almost couldn't believe it, it was so perfect. He loves Zoe and refers to her as his dog. They are so sweet together and I knew I had to capture this image for this theme. 

Week 14 | Love - A Boy & His DogCopyright 2015 Kimberly Tank Art & Photography

Week 15 | Quiet - Dog Day Afternoon

This is Liby, my other German Shepherd who is about to turn 10. She's my first "baby" and has been crazy since day one. I trained and certified her as a cadaver dog (because she desperately needed a job) and ran a local k9 search and rescue for several years before having my son. Liby also has her Rally Novice title with AKC and was my demo dog when I taught obedience classes. She is currently retired but continues to drive me nuts, haha! She has calmed down quite a bit over the years but these moments are still hard to catch during daylight hours. It just so happens that the day I took this, she wasn't feeling so well (likely because she gets into the compost bin and eats old rotten food and chicken poop, EWW). My son was actually taking a nap that day and the house was quiet for a change and this was the perfect moment to capture for the week. 

Week 15 | Quiet - Dog Day AfternoonCopyright 2015 Kimberly Tank Art & Photography

Week 16 | Free - Run Free

I had a few different ideas for this theme, from trying to catch a bird in flight ("free as a bird"), to an image with the flag.  I finally decided to capture my son running barefoot with one of his play-silks on as a cape. He, like me, is not a fan of shoes and rarely wears them when playing outside. I love the feeling of freedom when watching a toddler run around outside without a care in the world.

Week 16 | Free - Run FreeCopyright 2015 Kimberly Tank Art & Photography

​Week 17 | Freelensed - Spring Leaves

This theme was definitely a challenge and made me step outside of my comfort zone. For those of you non-photographers reading this, freelensing is a technique in which you take a picture with your lens detached from your camera and somewhat tilted (you can get a similar effect using a tilt shift lens that you can buy too). This is extra challenging if you shoot Nikon, like I do, as the newer lenses automatically close back down the aperture when removed from the camera so you have to either hold or tape the little aperture lever open to take a picture. I was trying to get caught up and wanted to give it a try with just holding the lever instead trying the tape. The big challenge in doing this is that your finger is in the way and you have a much bigger tilt angle away from the camera which can let in too much light if you aren't careful and you can't get much in focus. I took a couple pictures of the oak tree in the backyard and fell in love with this image. Even though it's hard to know what this is by just looking at it, I love the globing effect it had on the image. I definitely want to try this technique again using tape so that maybe I can get something more in focus next time!

Week 17 | Freelanced - Spring LeavesCopyright 2015 Kimberly Tank Art & Photography

Now that I'e captured both my dogs, maybe the I will be able to capture the cat one of these weeks! Though I'm not holding out much hope since she hides most of the time. 

Thanks for following along with my project! Which image from this post was your favorite and why? I'd love to know!

<3

Kim

Owner/Photographer-Artist

Kimberly Tank Art & Photography

P.S. If you would like to see some of my fellow NAPCP photographer's Project 52, check out these links: ShutterBEAN Photography, WojoImage Photography, Close Your Eyes Photography, JG Images, Marena Beck Photography, Songbird Photography, H. Wilson Photography, Defining Moments Photography, Gina Holt Photography, Floyd Family Photography, MZ Photography, Chrystal Cienfuegos Photography