I clearly suck at photo challenges
It’s not even three weeks into the year and I’ve already missed a whole bunch of days from the 2009 photo challenge. I think there are two main reasons for this:
- Living primarily in a smallish country town it’s hard to see things as unique or interesting. Other folks take fantastic reflection photos of San Francisco skylines, and the windows of the local IGA plastered with ‘VB Challenge’ posters hardly compete.
- I just don’t have the dedication or enthusiasm or imagination to find ways of interpreting the world around me with in a constrained timeframe and with a constrained subject.
I know that Trevor and Jeremy have deliberately chosen subjects that everyone should be able to find around them in everyday life, but when I see that the day’s subject is Clouds and I’ve got a cloudless blue sky outside, what can you do? How can you possibly interpret the entire absence of clouds as a photo about clouds? It’s not that I can’t take an interesting photo of clouds (I can!) but I’m just not good at doing it on demand.
Another example is Zipper. All I’ve got is the poor set of plastic teeth that faces a daily struggle to hold my jeans in place, and I cannot conceive of an interesting way to capture that image with any modicum of taste at all.
I could possibly have visited the local haberdashery shop and taken photos of newborn zips yet to be dragged into the world of clothing, but then again, in a smallish country town, sneaking around taking photos of rows of zips is the sort of behaviour that will have people starting to cross the street when you approach while whispering ‘weirdo’ to themselves.
Some of the earlier subjects actually worked out pretty well, but others have thrown me completely. My resolve to finish the challenge is looking like failing for another year.
I didn’t even think about the January 2009 monthly challenge, because I knew ahead of time that wouldn’t work. I’ll see what March turns out to be.
You can receive updates via Twitter (http://twitter.com/photochallenge) or you can subscribe via email. There’s a box for email subscription just under the photograph of Trevor and me on the right hand side of the page.
I’ve given up on relying on the RSS feed. It’s a pain, but the only way to get it is to visit http://photochallenge.org every day.
My challenge is getting the daily topic!!!
I’ve found that the RSS feed comes through late in the day, and if I’m not online, I have no easy way of getting the topic…
I agree, don’t give up so easily. Forgive yourself for not being able to do every challenge and just move on to the next one. There are a lot of weekdays when I leave in the dark and come home in the dark, which doesn’t leave me a lot of options photo-wise. For instance, the zipper shot, I know of this great store in the city that has a gigantic zipper along its store front, and I would’ve loved to have used it for the challenge. Unfortunately, there was just no way to get there that day, and so I made due with what I had in the house. I’ve found that it’s not so much what you photograph, as it is challenging your eye to see that same object in a different way. I fail a lot, but that’s all part of the learning.
Keep at it!
Actually, Gary, that’s a good point. Aiming for 300 shots isn’t unreasonable.
Don’t give up so soon. Just because your local stuff may be boring to you, doesn’t mean it’s boring to others. It’s only day 17 and I’ve found it challenging to come up with shots. Clouds might be my downfall.
I’m personally hoping to get 300 shots for the challenge. If I manage that, I’ll be happy.
Maybe you could photograph the clouds of dust raised by people crossing the street to avoid you after you’ve photographed the haberdashery store zippers.
Why, you got some zips I can take photos of?
A chat with your wifey might have provided some inspiration..
It’s all relative I suppose. Things that are commonplace to you may be interesting to other people…
I am wondering about the clouds theme myself. We have had bright blue skies for the last week. If all else fails, I’m going to draw some clouds on a sheet of paper. Or maybe light paint a cloud on a wall at night. Feel free to use my ideas.
One thing you could try is to put things in an out of context setting. The zipper of your folded jeans on a shelf of the refrigerator.
At any rate, it’s good to see you trying. If it wasn’t a challenge, we couldn’t call it a challenge.