It’s been a while since the challenges inspired me. I guess I’m in kind of a slump, which could be either the challenge topics or the whole “living through 2020” thing. Or both.
The Blue challenge was harder than it should have been. Blue skies, blue Alto, blue bowl, I tried them all and nothing caught my eye. Then I was driving back to the campground from an Amazon locker when I took a wrong turn and saw this cemetery. I pulled over and took a few shots, then played with it in Lightroom. I didn’t want the perky blue skies and pure white clouds that were originally in the frame. Cemeteries make me melancholy and I wanted the image to show that, so I changed the tone and made it into kind of a visual pun (blues) for the week.
If I thought Blue was difficult, the next week was worse. Honestly, I had zero inspiration for the challenge theme of “Shooting Through” something. In desperation, I picked up the metal stand for my Solo Stove (a portable fire pit) and shot through that.
Doing that one small thing led to another idea, to aim through just one of the tiny holes on the side of the stand. That worked better, and with a little cropping and vignetting in Lightroom, I had something I liked for the week’s challenge.
The next week, I was camping with friends, all masked and socially distanced to protect the ones among us who have health concerns. I wasn’t even thinking of the challenge when I snapped this photo with the cook’s iPhone! It was just such a fun dinner, homemade pizza in a portable pizza oven, five friends enjoying each other’s company that I wanted to have a photo to remember it by. Turns out it was the only shot I took for the challenge because it was perfect.
And that brings us up to Week 42 in the 2020 challenges. So far, I’ve met every challenge this year, only 10 more to go.
These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues.
Abigail Adams
Annie, I love your posts. The thought behind each challenge is great as is your continued travel. All the best. Can’t wait to meet you at an AltoGather someday.
We’ve been living in ours on a small animal-filled farm in SW Washington since March 22nd when the pandemic required we bolt home from Istanbul. Someday it would be fun to share photos. Mine are of beaver dams and alder forests and moss-covered ancient stumps and of goats, ravens, ducks and occasionally of chickens sneaking up on me to stare into my iPhone camera.
No great theorem as your photography efforts follow, but a record of our luck at landing here.
All the best
Jeanne Muir, from Erratk
I had to go to 52 frames to see what the week 42 challenge was. It is easy to get stuck on that page, looking at all the fantastic photos that are submitted.