Today is my fifth month contributing to a wonderful photography styling challenge started by Redesigned by M in June last year.

The photographs cannot be edited, and only a maximum of five images may be posted. This is difficult for me as I tend to take so many photographs and I always struggle to choose JUST five. Each one appeals to me in a different way. But, in essence this is exactly the point of the challenge...to better yourself as a photographer and stylist. One of the biggest challenges for myself this year as a photographer is to shoot with more purpose, and not to just snap away and hope that 1 out of the 400 images i capture comes out exactly as I envision it. So yes, this series has been challenging, but I've learnt a lot about myself as a photographer and about my equipment too. I am very proud of myself to say that I only took 30 pictures for this shoot, I tried to put a lot more thought into each photograph. I had my husband as my model (he didn't enjoy being in front of the camera very much and there was such an icy wind...I had to shoot fast! But I'm very happy with how the photographs came out).

My first submission was for Morning {click here} followed by Bedroom {click here}, Order {click here} and Patterns {click here}. Each theme or concept is open to interpretation by the photographer, and it has been really interesting seeing how each of us has handled the themes in different ways.

Here are my five chosen images for this photography challenge. I styled my husband for the shoot, and we went outside into the back streets of our little town here in Korea to make use of the slightly grungy setting juxtaposed against my male model. It was my first time shooting a man (as opposed to my female models) and it was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. My model didn't enjoy being in front of the camera much, so I had to work quickly and give out as few 'orders' as possible while still guiding him into the right poses that worked with the setting.

I used the following settings on my NIkon d300s & 35mm 1.8 lens:

-ISO 400

-Aperture variation of 5.6

-Shutter-speed 200

-I had my white balance on cloudy and right at the end for the last two shots I changed it to the indoor setting and suddenly the photos were a lot warmer and more inviting (I kept both to show you the difference, if I had more time I would have shot them all on the indoor white balance setting, but thought it was a good exercise to help me learn more about white balance)

I am starting to include my settings used in this challenge to give you an idea of how you can recreate the style of these images. I am constantly learning every time I pick up my camera too, but I hope these help you a little in your photographic journey.