International Women's Day: inspiring photographers

Since it is International Women's Day today, I thought I'd celebrate two female photographers, who have both got people to be braver with their photography.

I've been getting back into photography thanks to these women and their projects. Karen Louise George, who taught me how to photograph white flowers without losing definition, runs #KentPhotoProject (@FavershamPhoto) on Twitter and Facebook, with a different theme for each day of the month. Last month I joined in but used old photos; this month I am making the effort to take new ones deliberately for each topic. Today's subject was "Lunch", as you can see in the first photo, and it coincided with a rare sociable day in my calendar - I was due to catch up with three friends that I met on an improvisation course. We got on like a house on fire and have met up for a meal and chat every few months. They are a fantastic group of women, doing very different jobs, and it's quite likely we would never have met had we not all decided to be brave and try something new one summer. Our parents are from different parts of the world, so we are quite "international"!

Yesterday's subject was "Makes me smile", and there were so many things to choose from, but I decided to take this:

Emma Davies (@EmmaDaviesPhoto) runs #1day12pics on Twitter and Instagram on the first Saturday of each month. Whenever I've noticed that it's happening, I've not been in the mood to take photos all day, and I feel I ought to join in when I'm doing interesting things and going to new places. Yesterday I thought [bleep] it, I'll just join in. So I did. The photos weren't of anything exciting - two were of cups of tea and two were of laundry! But it was fun to do; it makes me want to look out for details in my day to day life and not miss out on tiny moments of beauty.

Here are my twelve pictures. If you like the sound of it, maybe take part in April? Though of course you could just decide to take a photo every hour on any day of the month! And in case you wonder, the Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin pie-making film is Labor Day.