Sometimes I give myself a little personal challenge or try a photographic experiment to spark inspiration or get me out of a creative rut. Last week after chatting with some photog friends, I was reminded how much I love the look of frelensed images. I’ve tried freelensing a couple times before with some luck, but it’s not something I do frequently. So, I thought that detaching my lens and heading to a low light environment might be a good little experiment. I grabbed my Nikkor 50mm 1.8 D, the lens I bought specifically for freelensing (because it has a manual aperture ring and you can score one for about $100!), and headed to my 5 yr old daughter’s dark bedroom where I attempted to put her down for nap. Well, things did not work out as planned. She was NOT interested in napping, and I’m afraid she’s close to dropping naps all together 🙁 . AND, she was FULL of energy, as in jumping and climbing on the bed full of energy. I was too worried she’d cause a cam-tastrophe, so I quickly attached the lens and just started clicking…in low light, and in manual focus. I was sure that I got nothing from this series since I was sure that the lens + manual focus + a cranked ISO was a recipe for disaster. But, then I loaded the images and I LOVED what I got….the dramatic light, the details, the story, even that noisy grain!  I’m not claiming that these are perfect, but I really, really love them anyway.

I hope you like my little nap time series, and I hope you are inspired to try something new! Even if you don’t capture what you set out to capture, you may find something you love 🙂