Day 79 - Enter a Photo Contest

Date: March 26th, 2010

So.  I've got a beautifully painted house made of cardboard and enough peeps to survive the apocalypse.  You know what that means!  Peeps themed photo contest in which the contestants are required to build 3-D scenes, place peeps in them and then send in the photos.

Like this, except on a budget

The Ann Arbor Library was hosting a contest for people to make 3-D scenes of peeps, take pictures and send them in.  I don't know if it was the sense of community, the chance to be creative or the $35 Target gift card that enticed me the most, but on Friday I found myself at my parent's house again.  This time my dad and I were staging pics of peeps in and around the house we made.

Since it was a children's competition with a category for adults, I felt it was my civic duty to push that PG-13 envelope just a little.  We decided on a couple themes for a couple pictures, but since you can only send in one entry, I took the pictures for this one and (you'll read about it soon enough) my dad took the pictures for the other one.  My choice for the local library's peep photo contest?

PEEPing Tom.

Haven't never taken pictures for anything besides social good times, I wasn't really prepared for the level of detail that would be involved in taking pictures that, you know, matter.  This picture was from about round four of our picture taking attempts.  At first the light was wrong.  Then the lady peep in the house was in the wrong spot.  Then we realized that we forgot to put bra straps on our lady peep (I know, unforgivable, right?).  I also hadn't ever used a really high quality camera like the one my dad has.

It takes higher quality pictures, but it was fun to feel like a photographer for a little while.  I was trying different angles, zooms, focuses and all sorts of other whatnot.  My camera has those features, but its just a little digital jobby so it doesn't feel neat to mess with them.  It was great to get to "feel the part" of a young photographer.  I mean, it was a little like playing make-believe again.  In all seriousness, I spent the better part of 20 minutes moving closer and farther from the house to take pictures, playing with flashlights to experiment with lighting, snapping pictures quickly, as though my peep-models were going to move and lose their pose.  It was great... even if I don't end up with that $35 Target gift card.