About August

Many bloggers are taking part in the August Break. While I understand, appreciate, admire, and respect this decision, I really miss them!  I just discovered many of them this spring and I was not ready for them to take a break. At least it gives me something to look forward to in September. 

Her idea was to simply post one picture a day.  But  she made a point of saying there were no rules, no right way to do it.  It reminded me of something I tried a couple of years ago. I found the idea as I was surfing the net.  A mom of four young children wanted to work on her photography with her limited time and made a goal of posting a picture a day for a year.  I followed it for a while, the while that I was copying it. She has since closed it to the public and I have no way of getting back in. Bummer.  

I love putzing with my camera and enjoyed the project, although it took up way more time than I expected.  I had rules.  I had to post one, and only one,  picture a day.  Some days I took many pictures and it was painful to pick just one.  Other days I was dead tired and it was 10 pm and I had to take a picture of my coffee pot. I loved what became of this project.  It was a day in the life.  Some times I had great pictures and some days I didn’t.  I learned to look at different elements of my photography, and had to hone some skills when forced to choose one picture. I created a blog for this (that, of course, was only for me) and it was fun to watch it grow. 

I came down with H1N1 that spring and that was the end of it.  I was seriously sick for over two weeks and the habit was broken.  

My mother has always asked me how I take the pictures I take.  I have never known how to answer her.  I pick up the camera and press the button. Period.  I rarely turn the dial off of automatic.  She kept badgering me for more instruction.  She wanted the technical stuff that she thought I was keeping a secret. 

In her retirement, she has gone crazy with her camera and can out talk me in photography technicalities all day long. I asked her to do this August thing with me.  With the rules, because that’s how I am. One picture per day.  Early on, she said she didn’t like it because it felt forced.  I explained how the parameters could be viewed as a teaching and growing challenge.  She still doesn’t really like it, but I told her to start her own blog if she didn’t want to do it my way. 

I also am not liking it as much as I did before.  One of the reasons is that I haven’t used my Canon - I’ve just been using my phone.  It isn't developing photography skills.  But it is a day in the life, so I am appreciating that. And it is really fun to do this with my mother.  Her pictures are all labeled Patsy’s Pics and mine aren’t labeled yet.