What inspires you?

What makes you want to grab your camera?  What do you see and know it will make a fabulous photograph?  Why do you take photographs?  This advent I am challenging myself to photograph whatever turns up in my kids advent calendars everyday.  I'm doing this because I have taken December to concentrate on my own family, but I still want to be challenged artistically and technically during this time and, so far, I have found few other opportunities to draw my faith into my photography.

This shot, in all honesty, was mediocre SOOC.  I had envisioned beautiful light, a dramatic sky... what I found was blankets of cloud, low light levels and an uninspiring flat colour.  To process this shot I used several adjustment layers in PS, one to render the sepia, another for dodging and burning and another to add the vignette.

So in those times between jobs, when you're driving to the supermarket, keep that camera close because you never know what will make you want to grab it.