Take52 Challenge: Week 16 – Formless

The 3rd and final catch up post of the Challenge!

When I saw last week’s theme, I sighed in relief! Formless in my head was easy to do – Light, steam, sky, smoke, fire, fog, water…any number of formless things presented themselves!! What I should have realised is that a paucity of ideas and an overload can cause the same reaction – a paralysis of action 😛 As I dithered between this and that, the group erupted with fantastic & innovative interpretations of ‘Formless’. And although it matters not a jot (this is a Challenge not a Competition), I wanted to do something different. I can be stubborn like that. Thankfully the old ‘noggin’ didn’t let me down and I decided to go with Bokeh…the effect you get when you deliberately ‘unfocus’ Light. I remember the days when I first got my DSLR and went rather ‘Berserk over Bokeh’ 😛 (how’s that for some trippy alliteration?). It had been a while since I arranged a shot at home and I had fun setting up the lights and adjusting my subject for the best results. Ultimately I liked two different pictures for two different reasons and had to rely on Photoshop once again for some merging action. I’m enjoying the fact that this Challenge has got me working on post-processing again. It’s a vital part of Photography and great fun!

Here’s the result…

 

And as always some more perspectives on Formless that I like…

Sleeping City – Cloaked in darkness & formless dreams!

Formless mistiness – Morning comes to the Blue Mountains!

Giving Form to the Formless?! We Indians excel at this 😉

The Formidable Formlessness of Fiery Flames 😛

Take52 Challenge: Week 13 – Delicate

Delicate – such a deceptive word. I’ve always thought that. Like petite. It conjures up images of things easily broken, damaged; suggests a lack of inherent strength, of ‘hardiness’ – in both things and people. And although in many cases this may be true, in many others I find that the inherent strength of the delicate (whether objects or humans), far exceeds that of the obviously strong – whether physically or mentally. Christie used women in ‘delicate’ health all the time and they never seemed to die on their own! No indeed – they never died until someone tired of waiting and went about murdering them 😛 Perhaps that’s where I first learned to beware the word? 😉 And if you’ve ever worked with babies like I have, you’ll know all about their iron grip!

This past week – Delicate was also the theme of the Challenge. I didn’t want to go the obvious route (when do I ever?!), but explore the ‘delicateness’ in the abstract – our minds, our hearts, our thoughts, our dreams, our egos – seemingly fragile yet capable of herculean strength when needed. I thought of the dream catcher I brought back from my trip to the Grand Canyon. It has hung from my bedroom window in every house I’ve lived in since – swaying gently in the breeze, filtering my dreams, protecting me from nightmares or so I like to think 🙂 I love it though and I love the thought of it and it seemed to fit the theme. It did help that it had a few delicate beads and feathers! I added the quote because it’s a favourite but also because I’m still learning to let ‘negative space’ just be! I’m working on it, I promise 😛 Here it is…Delicate Dreams…

And once I was done with the Challenge, I decided to take a few shots of the weeds in the gardens – another deceptively delicate species 😉

What’s your take on ‘Delicate’? Share! Do! 

Take52 Challenge: Week 12 – Score

I was in Goa for the week this theme was announced and busy with things other than the Challenge. The most obvious interpretation of the word – “Sports” is NOT something I’m interested in at all; and so this was the toughest challenge for me so far. I struggled to come up with ideas and when I did, it was almost always too late and someone had posted before me! I took many pictures of my son playing cricket, but I couldn’t find any that hit the spot. I came back home to Bangalore 5 days later…with time running out and still stuck. In desperation I took a few shots of a Beer Mug with ‘scored’ glass but it didn’t feel right. Then while cleaning out my junk drawer I found my eye-test result and as it so often does – something clicked! And so I took this picture for the Challenge. It is my first monochrome submission and I’m quite happy with it 🙂 

Of course in keeping with Murphy’s Law…once I was done with this picture, I began to get a few more ideas and on delving into my archives, I found a few pictures that seemed to fit the theme! What would you have shot for this theme? Do share! 

Game score. Played around in Photoshop for this one and used the picture from last week’s challenge as backdrop.

Scored Glass. I liked that the reflection was clear and that the handles looked like spectacles 😉

Scored Wisdom. I wrote this Haiku for NaPoWriMo 2013 and paired it with the image of an old, scored tree stump that screamed Character!

Scored Fruit. The Breadfruit tree in my Mom’s garden is just a few years younger than me and infinitely more productive 😉

Scoring a Shot!