Stumblingpiper

Last year, my brother and I started a photo contest with each other. It quickly expanded to include other family members. We picked a topic for each month and then submitted from one to three photos depending on that month’s rules. The only stipulation was that you had to use an actual camera, not a cell phone. Here’s a look back at the photo contest through the series of my images:

January: Water. This was any form of water: snow, ice, fog, lake, river, rain, kitchen faucet, etc. I decided to try and get creative and capture a water drop from a piece of ice. Oh, and also I saw a duck. haha.

February/50mm Challenge – This was 50mm lens only, if you use a full-frame camera. If you have DX (Nikon) or Crop (Canon) camera, you could use a 35mm–it produces a 50mm equivalent photo. Also, it was a NO-CROP challenge. You could change color, exposure, contrast, etc, but you had to use the whole image. Here are my shots.

March/Local Architecture – This month’s theme was three pictures within of local architecture and infrastructure. Local was where you were at the time. Each structure had to be man-made. My photos this month were ok … not the greatest. haha.

April/In-Motion – This was simply three images that showed motion — or it could be a 10-second video. Here two of mine — my third is a time-lapse photo: here

May / Black-and-White. Pretty simple–three images in Black and White. Interestingly, these images came from Washington (pond), Saskatchewan (silo), and Colorado (windmill). 

June / New Growth – This was a tough topic for June … but I was able to pull it off and find three images that reflected the idea of new growth. Can you see the baby quail peaking out from its mother’s wing?

July / Darkness — This one was very nebulous — just needed to reflect something about Darkness, so I went with Astrophotography. These images are the same ones from my last “Night Photography” post.

August / Reflected Images — This one was tough! You had to capture a reflection of some sort. It required opportunity and observation. You really had to look to see how the image would turn out! I’m happy with these three …

September / Man versus Nature. Another nebulous one — just needed to show the on-going challenges of man against nature … My three pictures were similar to each other, but I think captured the idea very well.

October / Elements & Moods. This month was a combination of a randomly selected mood (mine was lonely) with a basic element of art (mine was “Form”). My lucky combination made it easy to capture the three following photographs.

November / Numinous. This was tough, because the definition is pretty nebulous. Basically, the pictures should be something “supernatural,” “mysterious,” “holy,” or “appealing to the aesthetic sense.” It also means “nod of the head.” Hopefully you will get that effect from the following three images. haha.

December / Eye of the Beholder! This one was one photo, your best shot, in the eye of the beholder. lol. Here’s my picture:

I hope you enjoyed this trip through the year’s photo contest (from me). Really fun but quite challenging!

James