Was waiting for someone, anyone else to post something before I put this out there, but seein’ as no one seems to have bothered yet I might as well.
Nihilism, not sure why I picked this as the theme. Might be the General election that was going on at the time and my particular mistrust of the current political and electoral system, or maybe I just like the word…
…Anyway here’s my interpretation of it.
At first I was rather taken aback by Darren’s selection of tabula rasa as the theme for this month. First, I didn’t know what the hell it meant. Second, even after discovering the various definitions I was all “Blank slate? BLANK SLATE?? What the devil am I going to do with this?” But I somehow managed…
Props to Tamela for the inspiration as once she posted her first image for the month I was immediately struck by an idea for this theme. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the year of our Lord 2010 had just commenced as well. Her literal blank page coinciding with the demise of 2009, and perhaps making 2010 a ‘blank slate’ from which to start, combined in my head to produce the idea that I wanted an image or images that revolved around the demise of 2009, thus leading to our 2010 blank slate.
But how was I to convey this information via photography? Perhaps this way?
Unfortunately, I think this series says more about the demise of 2009 and less about the blank slate that may be 2010 (which, by the way, isn’t off to a great start either). However, interpretation by the photographer is a key element of this group project stuff and as such I’m actually pleased with my results thus far this month. Not perfect, but clearly the mind was thinking and pondering and considering, which is a good thing.
In addition, I went through plenty just to obtain a chalkboard by which to take these shots. One of our friends and neighbors is a principal at my daughter’s high school and I threw myself at his mercy and asked if I could borrow a chalkboard last week when the school was closed to students for a day. How lucky I was too considering there are only two real chalkboards left in the entire school with all others having been replaced with dry erase boards.
I know, fairly predictable, huh?
perhaps more will follow. 
While posting late in the month I actually snapped this image sometime last week or so.
I had quite a number of ideas flow through my grey matter as the first portion of this month passed, but none really jumped out and grabbed me by the throat saying “This is a winner of an idea old man. Now get snapping!” Then one rather overcast day while out feeding the ferals I took to walking about the field of tall grasses that border the wood on the south end. I was actually looking for the cat Prince, who had been missing for some days. I was half expecting to find his lifeless body, but instead found only browning grasses. Fortunately Prince was to turn up a few days later.
Regardless, while I was making my way round the field I came across a handful of these particularly tall blades of grass with what looked like seed pods running along near the top of the blades. I thought them pretty in a minimalist sort of way and that is when it hit me: minimalist. Sounds a lot like minimal, eh?
So the brain kicked into gear and I raced back to my car for my backup camera (the Rebel XTi/400D). Returning to a particularly tall blade I contemplated how to shoot it so that I could capture both it and the theme for this month. Mind racing….well….puttering along I realized I needed a blank background, so to speak, so that there was only the blade and therefore a minimal amount of subject.
Borrowing from the work of Mike, Darren and Tam I laid myself upon the frozen ground and started snapping pictures upwards so that the cloud-filled atmosphere filled the background. Being winter the clouds were that dull and grey sort that appear almost solid in colour.
Once home I put the image up in Lightroom and looked at it. In disappointment. While it captured the theme, or so I thought (and still do think), it lacked any punch. And I know a minimalist image can have punch; I’ve noticed it quite often in the works of one Flickr poster whom I’ve been following (and who lives nearby).
A bit dejected I put the image aside and began contemplating another shot. But just the other day I re-opened the image and began fiddling around with it a bit in Lightroom. I was doing what I normally do: tweaking, but to no avail. Then quite by accident I moved a slider quite far to the right and suddenly the image was transformed. Suddenly it was different. Suddenly there was impact. Suddenly it was more like the image I wanted as opposed to the image I had.
Inspired by this chance goof, I began moving other sliders around and witnessing their respective impact to the whole. Eventually I settled upon the outcome you have seen above. And while I have no idea what others may think of it, I’m quite excited by it. I feel it has impact, but remains simple. It now better fits what I hoped to convey as opposed to what my original image presented.
I hope you folks like it as well.
You all know I love working with natural light.
This shot posed a bit of a challenge as we’ve had more overcast, rainy and snowy days lately. Thankfully, today’s weather was perfect…bright blue, clear sky and radiant sunshine.
Patiently I waited.
Around 1:30 pm local time, the sun sank low enough in the sky to cast a beautiful beam of light through our bedroom window. My model was ready, as was I.
With this theme, I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do but disaster struck, my Pentax came down with swine flu and is currently in intensive care getting the treatment it needs to get better, so I had to go back to using my point and shoot which, to be honest isn’t up to the task, much to my dismay.
Panic sets in, falls on my knees hands in the air shouting why!(think there may have been a slomo involved, no explosion tho).
And so after much deliberation and I must confess a little help from Mike( he’d already done his so thats ok innit?) here it is my new theme photo and it reflects my mindset at the moment.
