Having been a design blog lurker for years, I've admired approximately 3 billion beautiful images - ones styled just so, the light catching appropriate angles or colors, everything in each photo radiating pretty or rustic or calm or celebration or . . . one gets the idea.
Not being a photographer by trade [I'm very little by trade :)] I wanted to teach myself how to create these kind of images. I started my blog to expand my horizons, and photography is part of that expansion.
I knew I needed practice, and a track record. At the same time, I was learning how to make espresso from CKP - my boyfriend - a certified Coffee Nerd. So I combined the two.
The idea is to take a picture of my daily espresso every day for a year.
This serves a lot of purposes: It forces me to think out-of-the-box with placements/settings/backdrops, while providing a pretty static subject matter [my espresso cup collection is limited - but growing!] that I will always have on hand. It hones my espresso-making skills. It gives me a chance to fuss with photo editing on fairly simple focal object. It gives me a reason to post daily.
By the end of the year, I hope to look back and be able to see how my styling eye and my photo-editing skills have improved, my knowledge of actual camera-usage has grown, how I've been able to capture a mood I felt at the time, that my photos have become worthy of this amazing circle of incredibly talented design bloggers.
As always, I have massive amounts of respect for the work, time and talent that goes into what seems like a simple blog image. With any luck, someone [even just me] will look at my carefully crafted images of homemade espresso and simply think "My, now isn't that well-done/pleasing to mine eye!"
[I tend to speak in Shakespeare to myself . . .]
