If you have children then you’ve probably come across the book ‘Stranger in the woods’. It is hands down my favorite children’s book. It’s also what inspired me to get out into the world and start taking photos. This week the theme is low key. I can think of nothing more low key than a quiet morning in the woods with some surprise visitors. Four meandering deer found me very entertaining. It may have had something to do with my unique early morning look of pajamas and hot pink hikers….. — Tarah

kelli ann wilson

I love that Tarah and I took such different pictures, and yet there are still similarities (we both took photos of deer and autumn leaves). I wasn’t sure how to interpret this week’s theme of “low-key” so I went with the technical angle. In photography you can use high-key lighting (which gives you those beautiful blown-out newborn portraits with big glossy eyes) or low-key lighting (only a part of an object is highlighted and the rest of the image shadows). There are a lot of tutorials out there for creating low-key portraits with just camera settings and an off-camera flash. Unfortunately, I don’t have an off-camera flash, so I had to get really creative with the available light and a bit of tweaking of exposure and shadow settings in Photoshop. I’m pretty happy with how everything came out. Low-key portraits have a studio feel to them, which isn’t really my style. Still, it’s great to get pushed out of my comfort zone sometimes, and I feel more confident to try other techniques now. — Kelli