CHALLENGE GALLERY - # - Light and Dreams Photography

This is the place for our happy little (rapidly expanding) band to be challenged on a weekly basis, and hopefully battle outside our comfort zones. We all have our favourite areas of photography, and it is all to easy to become stuck in them and not attempt new things. I know this for a fact because I've been there! But photography is a wonderful place of infinite variety and endless opportunities for artistic expression, welcome to our mad world :)

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The "Lexicon" Challenge...06/15/09
The Challenge:Show us your interpretation of "Flout - to treat with contemptuous disregard".
The Participants: Kre8ive, John (300m), The Curious Camel, Karina, Creative Deviance, Lady Kate, FotoEffects, Hillary, CSPics, and myself.
The Result: OK this is me showing contemptuous disregard to the law of trespass by running in a private quarry. I do this several times a week, along with other runners, dogwalkers, birdspotters, kids, in fact anyone who wants to use this wonderful local resource rather than just look at it from outside! This is my favourite part, running up a steep section from a rocky terrace to a grassy path that runs round the quarry edge

If you want to see what happened during my run check out my Daily for yesterday; http://www.lightanddreamsphotography.com/gallery/7240041_kZdsG#563600607_ZWSYY

The "Painting With Light" Challenge...06/08/09
The Challenge:Show us your interpretation of "Painting With Light".
The Participants: Kre8ive, John (300m), The Curious Camel, Karina, Creative Deviance, Lady Kate, FotoEffects, Hillary, CSPics, and myself.
The Result: "Abstract Light" - Right from the start my intention with this challenge was to capture the patterns created on stone by light passing through stained glass windows. Unfortunately a combination of the weather and a sinus infection meant that I couldn't get a new shot for this, so I had to raid the archives and work on an old image. This is the floor of Lincoln Cathedral, with an increase in contrast and the watercolour filter in Elements 5.0 applied to give an even more artistic look, with a frame to finish it off. I love these patterns, they are so ephemeral, changing all the time, literally painting the stone with light.

The original image is here, along with more shots of light patterns and more general photos of the Cathedral; http://www.lightanddreamsphotography.com/gallery/4562724_EH5v6#268918059_wQEuq

The Pen Challenge...06/01/09
The Challenge:Show us your interpretation of the word Pen.
The Participants: Kre8ive, John (300m), The Curious Camel, Karina, Creative Deviance, Lady Kate, FotoEffects, Hillary, CSPics, and myself.
The Result: Marker Pen. I was originally going to take a photo of my computer running photoshop, as that seems to have taken over from pens in my life in recent years, but then I decided to have a go at this, and quite liked the result. I was squatting on the floor with a large pad of paper on my knees, the camera on auto timer sitting on a small table by my side, with minimal light to get the movement blur.

The Place I Like to Hang Out Challenge...05/25/09
The Challenge:Show us your interpretation of, "The Place I Like to Hang Out."
The Participants: Kre8ive, John (300m), The Curious Camel, Karina, Creative Deviance, Lady Kate, FotoEffects, Hillary, CSPics, and myself.
The Result: "The Vic" - I wasn't sure if I should have a pub for this challenge because these days I really don't spend much time in them. But Kathleen did make it difficult to avoid in her original email for this challenge. I spend much more time in outdoor places like Hartsholme Park, but that features regularly in my Daily galleries, and has been in the Monday Challenge before, so a pub it is. The Victoria, or "The Vic", has been my favourite Lincoln pub for over 20 years. It sits in the shadow of Lincoln Castle, right beside the mighty West Gate, but the beer is the main attraction. I can't imagine going in a pub that doesn't serve good beer, or "real ale" in British parlance. Living breathing beer, not cold tasteless fizz produced in a chemical factory. The Vic has an ever changing selection of at least a dozen beers, of varying styles, including foreign bottled beers. It is a small place, not at all flash or fashionable, just a pub. People go to The Vic for the beer and the company of good friends, and the occasional good band, not to be seen by the fashion police. Maybe one day I'll be brave enough to take photos inside the place when it is full of people, but I'm far too self conscious for that at the moment. One thing is certain though, if any Smugmuggers ever visit me they will also be visiting The Vic :)

The Black and White Challenge...05/18/09
The Challenge:Show us your interpretation of Black and White.
The Participants: Kre8ive, John (300m), The Curious Camel, Karina, Creative Deviance, Lady Kate, FotoEffects, Hillary, CSPics, and myself.
The Result: Reflections of the Past. This is part of an old factory building called the Titanic Works, built in 1912 to almost exactly the same specifications as the ill fated ocean liner. Lincoln was dominated by heavy industry until the latter half of the last century, but this old building now houses a radio station, a gym and Council offices. It is normally very busy round here, but on Sunday afternoon in the rain it was completely deserted and quite atmospheric.

The original of this image is here; http://www.lightanddreamsphotography.com/gallery/7240041_kZdsG#538924506_2Svyq

The A Rose is a Rose Challenge...05/11/09
The Challenge:Show us your interpretation of A Rose is a Rose.
The Participants: Kre8ive, John (300m), The Curious Camel, Karina, Creative Deviance, Lady Kate, FotoEffects, Hillary, and myself.
The Result: Wild Rose - this has been more of a challenge than I originally thought, hence the late post. I had wanted to post a wild rose because they are my favourite, I tend to like wild things over domesticated or cultivated ones, but I just couldn't find a decent wild rose this week, too early I suspect. So this is a photo from last year that I've worked on today.

The Lexicon Challenge...05/04/09
The Challenge:Show us your interpretation of your chosen Lexicon word.
The Participants: Kre8ive, John (300m), The Curious Camel, Karina, Creative Deviance, Lady Kate, FotoEffects, Hillary, and myself.
The Result: Bombast - The original meaning of "bombast" (now obsolete) is "cotton or any soft fibrous material used as padding or stuffing." It is derived through Middle French "bombace," from Medieval Latin "bombax," which means "cotton." "Bombax" in turn comes from "bombyx," a Latin and ultimately Greek word that means "silkworm" or "silk." Etymologists aren't certain why the shift from silk to cotton occurred, though one source attributes it to an error going back to the Roman scholar Pliny, who had reported that cotton was produced by an insect analogous to the silkworm. "Bombast" has been retained in modern English because it took on a figurative sense used in reference to speech or writing. Thus the basic sense of "stuffing or padding" has survived, but now the stuffing consists of words rather than cotton.

I was so surprised at the original meaning of this word that I have tried to get an accurate representation of it, while at the same time getting far away from it's current meaning, and also something that is very different to my usual photography

The Furry Friend Challenge...04/27/09
The Challenge:Show us your interpretation of "Furry Friend."
The Participants: Kre8ive, John (300m), The Curious Camel, Creative Deviance, Lady Kate, FotoEffects, Hillary, and myself.
The Result: Our Unsung Furry Friend - Last year 40% of the bees in the UK died, and in the US it was even higher. "Experts" call it "colony collapse disorder" but they don't really know what is causing it. What they do know is that 80% of the world's crops are pollinated by bees, and that if we don't do something about it we will be in serious trouble! The media are just picking up on this, but I bet most people are still unaware. Of course, those of us that follow "Dr Who" know why the bees are disappearing. It is because they are aliens and they are going home to avoid the impending Dalek invasion :) Anyway, stopping bees disappearing is a real challenge.

The Tree Challenge...04/20/09
The Challenge:Show us your interpretation of "Tree."
The Participants: Kre8ive, John (300m), The Curious Camel, Karina, Creative Deviance, Lady Kate, FotoEffects, Hillary, and myself.
The Result: Spring Trees. I really couldn't decide what to use for this challenge, something arty, abstract? In the end this one grabbed me by the throat and begged to be used. No frames this time, no collages, no vignettes, no text, just huge chunks of Spring colour straight out of camera. There are still plenty of trees round here with little or no leaves on them, but this cherry and the willows along the river are in full effect right now. This was taken on Saturday, so is very similar to my Daily from that day, and it is also the reverse of this view from a couple of weeks ago http://www.lightanddreamsphotography.com/gallery/7240041_kZdsG/2/505016407_qqzi2#P-2-15

so I promise I'll leave this view alone for a while now :)

PS. If you use the "map this" feature you can see the trees, and even the swans!

The "Lexicon" Challenge...06/15/09

The Challenge:Show us your interpretation of "Flout - to treat with contemptuous disregard".

The Participants: Kre8ive, John (300m), The Curious Camel, Karina, Creative Deviance, Lady Kate, FotoEffects, Hillary, CSPics, and myself.

The Result: OK this is me showing contemptuous disregard to the law of trespass by running in a private quarry. I do this several times a week, along with other runners, dogwalkers, birdspotters, kids, in fact anyone who wants to use this wonderful local resource rather than just look at it from outside! This is my favourite part, running up a steep section from a rocky terrace to a grassy path that runs round the quarry edge

If you want to see what happened during my run check out my Daily for yesterday; http://www.lightanddreamsphotography.com/gallery/7240041_kZdsG#563600607_ZWSYY

The "Lexicon" Challenge...06/15/09

The Challenge:Show us your interpretation of "Flout - to treat with contemptuous disregard".
The Participants: Kre8ive, John (300m), The Curious Camel, Karina, Creative Deviance, Lady Kate, FotoEffects, Hillary, CSPics, and myself.
The Result: OK this is me showing contemptuous disregard to the law of trespass by running in a private quarry. I do this several times a week, along with other runners, dogwalkers, birdspotters, kids, in fact anyone who wants to use this wonderful local resource rather than just look at it from outside! This is my favourite part, running up a steep section from a rocky terrace to a grassy path that runs round the quarry edge
<---End Code---> If you want to see what happened during my run check out my Daily for yesterday; http://www.lightanddreamsphotography.com/gallery/7240041_kZdsG#563600607_ZWSYY" href="javascript:openLB(564244376,'',XLarge,'',1024,681);">