2012 photo challenge

I'm so NOT a photographer. At all. What photographer would lose three cameras in 18 months? (And, I'm not buying another one until I up-end the entire house....) (AND And, I blame the boys.)

But, there is something about the word "challenge" that I just can't pass up right now!

The girls over at An Offering Of Love have cooked up a challenge for 2012 with a different theme for each month. The themes are broad and (they hope) leave some room for "artistic exploration" (which to me means "more chances to get at least one interesting picture"). I will be lucky to get one photo to fit the criteria each month, and it will likely be taken with the crappy camera on my phone. HOWEVER, it will stretch my limits and thought processes which is the point.

The month themes are as follows:
January - you/self portraits/home
February - black & white
March - five senses
April - flowers/leaves
May - one thing from different perspectives/points-of-view
June - water or liquid
July - city landmarks/street photography
August - macro photography
September - lines or shapes
October - doors and windows
November - silhouettes or mirrors or shadows
December - glass or metal

So, January... The "ME" catetory. While I think that I'm relatively stimulating from an intellectual persepctive, and I have a LOT of things going on that make me interesting to talk with, I don't really consider myself photogenic at all. I also don't think that I have many qualities that make me memorable. I'm average height, weight, build, hair color, etc. In a busy NYC crowd, you would pick me out because, well, you wouldn't. One thing that I DO relate to right now is my running. I try to run at least five days/week, and it's extremely rare that I run less than three miles and sometimes up to 15 at one time. I would rather wear my running shoes than anything else, and I don't find it odd to get up at 4:30 every day to run in 17* weather.

February - Black and White - I realize that this is intended to push people to use the B&W settings on their photo software, but I'm not that person. For me, it's about the things that I see every day that are black or white. Since snow has been almost non-existent this February, I chose the OTHER black and white stuff that I see the most. (And, yes - I totally realize that there is some pink and red in this picture.) This is my desk. There are piles of paper that you can't even see in this picure. There is the do-immediately pile, the do-soon pile, the this-is-a-good-idea-but-I-don't-know-when-we-will-get-to-it pile, the I-should-have-done-this-months-ago pile, and then some exercise related stuff like Tai Chi poses, the location of exercise classes at work, and the recommended Tough Mudder workout (yes, I've registered and consider myself officially crazy). This is what I look at five days a week for 8+ hours a day.

March - the five senses. I really didn't know what I was going to do about this month's challenge. I can't imagine getting out and taking five pictures for the purpose of this challenge. Most of my pictures just happen when they happen. So, I was worrying and worrying about this month, trying to figure it out. Start the boys' bath; get them undressed, think, think, worry, put bubble bath in the water, worry, think. Then, I looked up. Then, I laughed. Right there, in our bathroom, was a picture that encompassed the five senses somehow.

So, there in the picture are things that affect our five senses.
Touch: There is always some sort of flower-y, vanilla-y, sea breeze-y lotion or body wash or cream up there. Bub's mom loves to shop, and we get at least one every month.
Taste: So, they're not that tasty, but there is a big bottle of herbs up there. It's too tall to fit in the cupboards.
Sight: Yes. We need to replace that bulb!
Smell: This is where we keep the canister of F*breeze which we use in the boys' room almost daily. (We did not realize that boys come with their own smells....)
Sound: You'll notice the bottle of Mr. Bubble - Oh! For the giggles that bubbles bring to the evening! The boys are at the stage where they make bubble beards and mustaches constantly.
We keep all of this stuff up here because the boys can't get to it. Well, I guess if they tried, they would probably be able to reach it. Thankfully, they haven't tried (at least not much).

April - flowers/leaves This was completely unplanned - I swear. When I got home last Friday, the boys had pictures for me that they had painted. It worked perfectly for the April photo challenge:

Clearly, Bub helped a bit with this one.

This is Peanut's tornado. When I asked what the red dots were, he said "flowers."

And, here you can clearly see Meatball's flower on the right and a caterpillar crawling up a stick on the left.