Smartphone Photos: A reflection of a creative challenge

"Silly" day 16

When we started the May creative challenge, I don't know whether Kimberly or I had any idea of where the project, and the process, would really take us. Over the last several months, Kimberly and I have participated in a number of these challenges: Inktober last October, a drawing challenge in January, a watercolor challenge in February and a storybook challenge in March. I suppose each one of these has given each of us some insight into our process as well as our artistic prowess. It's also very fun to see what the other will do. In many ways, this challenge was just a continuation of all the challenges we've been doing together since last October. However, I felt like this one was slightly different.

This one was somehow different, I think because of the nature of the medium. Being a photo project was one thing. I think that photographs represent life in a very realistic way. We also chose to use our phones as the tool for this project. All of the photos I took during the challenge were made with and edited with the phone. I did make a few other edits at least to a handful of photos with Photoshop. I suppose that could be considered cheating. The photos I tinkered with in Photoshop I felt really deserved the second set of edits.

What I found, more than anything else, was that this particular project was a stunning insight into my daily life. I took most of these photos in and around my home. The photos that were not taken at home, I took around my neighborhood. Sometimes I took walks into town to get certain images: the bulk food store, the music shop, the top of the parking garage downtown. These are places that I see often, these are places I go.

I do have a certain aesthetic that I think translated well to these images. They are all square, some have vignetting and most have that muted color that I know so well from all the years I played with toy cameras.

This challenge, like all of them, was a great daily exercise in practice. Yes, I had to make these photos daily. But what creative challenges are really about for me, is the way I think about them. I got consumed with this, like I have with the rest. I love to think about what I'm going to do, I love going out and doing it, and I love reflecting on what I've done.

I think everyone should do monthly creative challenges if for no other reason that to see if they make you think differently.  Please see the whole project live in Issuu: https://issuu.com/blog-site/docs/may_photobook