cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo shared by Alan Levine
And like that, we are at the end of July, the last day of the ds106 Daily Create Summer Challenge, going out with an easy one, a mere photography challenge:
Take a picture of your favorite thing in the world to do, however simple or complex.
Easily my favorite thing is making/taking/faking photographs, doing it daily since January 2008 right there on flickr and posting my personal favorites at barkingdog.me
Going down on the ground is part of the fun of getting in close to your subject, or taking a more unique angle.. This photo also speaks to my preference to be behind the camera than the subject, hence a bit of hiding behind the prop in my hand (this was taken with my pocket Olympus TG-2 camera, mounted on an original Gorillapod). It took a few practice shots to find good light at mid-day, and then again because its easy to mis judge how close I had to be to the little camera (which sports a wider angle lens than my 7D).
Still after all this time, I cannot think of anything I want to do more each day. I maintain than a good 60% or more of my daily photos have been taken in or or around my relatively small house (less than 1000 sq feet) or among my vast acreage (1/3 an acre). The joy of the challenge is finding something new in a place that is so familiar, or finding an angle of light/shadow that is not the same as you have seen before.
It’s what I have aimed to have my UMW ds106 students experience, to see their world differently when noticing details, or lines, or composition through their camera. It’s something I have enjoyed talking about by making the camera a metaphorical stretch for learning.
And its why I enjoy pushing out these Daily Creates even though its not like it’s part of my job (which is none, so it fits).
And so, I am just out of a meeting with Sergeant Hulka. The guy never smiles.
He had a few gruff comments for seeing a few more people on the Daily Create field this month, though, still at single digit participation per day, is not all that massive. But you know what, massive numbers and all that foo hah about big data is not what we care about around the ds106 camp.
I came up short myself this month, I missed 24, 25, and 26 while I had visitors NO EXCUSES! But the point is not to make some number, or metric, its to do as much as you can or want, and its best when it nudges you into creative spaces you may have not tread before.
Hulka is crunching the numbers so he can file a report with HQ by dawn. But you know what, there is no reason why you cannot create your own challenge, maybe it’s all of August, or every Wednesday, or only the video TDCs– set one up for yourself.
All of this is good prep for the Headless ds106 Course starting August 26 – already 6 have stepped up to the platform. Get your head in gear, set up a ds106 blog, sign up or let me know if you want an existing blog inside the ds106 machine to be tagged headless.
And do not think you are doing with ds106 Sergeants, they will be yelling and screaming at you the first two weeks of Headless ds106 cause that is BOOTCAMP!
Make your own Daily Create challenge at http://tdc.ds106.us/ or better yet, give us some new ones to put into the rotation.
