I'm loving the way this themed project is coming together for this class, especially since it's something I've wanted to focus on for awhile, but has just slipped down on the "to do" list way too often. It's easy to come up with a simple statement of something I learned each day. Not so simple to come up with a satisfactory macro or close-up photograph! Here are the latest three pages:

These flowers are actually very small. I'm guessing the photo is 1:3 or 1:4 which makes it a true macro. I used the tripod and manually focused which took a lot of patience. Of all the ones I took, this was my favorite. IRL you can see the tiniest of "hairs" on the flowers.

This is close-up photography taken with my Tamron 28-300mm lens at the Ithaca Farmers Market on Saturday. I don't even think about manually focusing when I'm out and about. Something I ought to do, I'm sure. I find it difficult to spend the kind of time I should in a setting like this.

This was taken with my new Canon S95 point and shoot. I wanted a point and shoot that would give me more flexibility, and a friend highly recommended this one. I took about half my photos in Alaska with this camera (which fits in my pocket or purse) and you'd be hard pressed to tell the photos from this camera from the ones taken with the my Canon Rebel. The only drawback is the zoom lens. I would never have gotten any decent wildlife photos in Alaska with this camera. The animals were just too far away. But I was pretty happy with this close-up of tomatoes from our garden.

Although I've "taken" Shimelle's course for several years, I don't think I've ever come close to completing it. This year a comment Rinda made on her blog gave me an idea. I've had a 60mm macro lens for nearly a year, and although I've used it occasionally, I've never really explored its power. So this year I'm devoting LSNED to macro and close-up photography. In conjunction, I'm planning to read Bryan Peterson's book "Understanding Close-up Photography: Creative Close Encounters With or Without a Macro Lens." I've already learned a lot the first day, and you can see the tips I typed up below on the first page of the little book I've prepared to save my efforts and thoughts on the process.

Here's the cover which I made from cardstock and covered with a Bo-Bunny camera-related patterned paper as well as a sticker border and round sticker from an accompanying set of stickers.

Here's the first page with the photo tips I typed up from the first chapter. I've already broken a couple of "rules" with my first photo. I didn't use my tripod or focus manually. Probably not a good start to the effort, but hopefully, we'll see an improvement tomorrow! I'll probably decorate the back side of the cover later.

Each page is a 4X6 piece of card stock and I snipped the ends off the left-hand side to match the tags that will separate each of the photos and serve as a quick journaling spot. As Shimelle suggested, I'm not binding this until the end, but my intent is to use just one book ring since the tags have one hole already. I think this will work since the pages aren't very big.

I don't have any idea how the prompts will work with this project, but when they are appropriate I'll try to find a photographic subject that goes with the prompt. I'm hoping this will be a fun and productive month!