Over in the Photo-Focus group the theme for May 2011 is simply “green”. Each month the group sets a theme on which members can contribute two photos on the group’s photo sharing site.
Setting a theme, whether by a group, or just on a personal basis, has the effect of stimulating thinking and seeing. Sometimes we grow stale in our hobby of photography. Having a little challenge helps us to strive and to work a bit harder.
On a morning walk through our favorite local park, I tried to see “green”. Not at all hard, now that spring is about to turn into summer here in the South. In fact, there was very little that was not green. The challenge was to see things that would be enjoyable, even meaningful, to another viewer.
So did I limit myself to green subjects? Of course not. One should never pass up a pleasant view in a quest for something specific. There were plenty of pretty flowers, a butterfly on a thistle, a passing hawk, my favorite rock in good light. In all, I came how with 55 exposures, not a bad haul for a short stroll. That should yield a handful that I can share.
My routine for importing to the computer is to first use Windows Live Photo Gallery for the transfer process. This allows assigning tags to groups of photos. Next I add some additional meta data, rename all the photos and then move the folders to my “photo store” drive. Only then do I open Photo Gallery and have a look. Some quick post-processing to bring out the best, then resizing before uploading to my photo sharing sites.
You can see some of my photos here. Click the images for a larger view.
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Enjoy!
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© 2011 Ludwig Keck
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Ludwig, I agree with your comment that focusing (no pun intended) on a theme or concept does get ones imagination going in all sorts of directions. For awhile, I was self-assigning themes to myself, such as colors, numbered things, old things; however, I have not been consistent in following through on a weekly basis. I enjoy yout tips about Live Writer and Live Photo Gallery - so much to learn and it's helpful when someone goes into more detail. THANKS!
ReplyDeleteWhoops, forgot to add that I enjoyed the photos from your walk...only 55???
ReplyDeleteThank you Beatrice for the nice comments. As to the "only 55?" - the excuses: It was just a short walk. My computer is at its "end-of-life" - in fact I could not review the 55 shots without getting two "out-of-memory" messages. There is a story in there somewhere!
ReplyDeleteJust read that lasty comment, Ludwig, and glad it's only the PC that was out of memory :-)
ReplyDeleteHurray - Now using my newly-built machine. Plenty of memory (16 GB), plenty of storage (2+ TB) and plenty of processing power (six-cores). Now I need a talent upgrade and we'll be all set!
ReplyDelete