Thursday 23 October 2014

Twenty-four photos in twelve hours?



At the end of September, on the spur of the moment, The Beard and I decided to join the Vienna Photo Marathon. The idea is that you have 24 themes, and you have to take a photo for each theme, in order. And you have 12 hours to do it in. 

There is no editing, no post processing, and everything has to be shot in JPG. The only things you are allowed to do to your photos are the things that your camera will do before you take the picture, like change the colour settings to shoot in monochrome or other fancy setting. Oh, and you can rotate them (my camera is set to auto rotate but I have no idea whether it actually works or not!). 

The Sunday dawned somewhat foggy, but by 9am when we went to pick up our memory card and the themes, the mist was clearing. The day turned out to be the best weather possible for photography, with beautiful clear skies and air. It was a LONG day - we were on our feet for nearly the whole 12 hours. With hindsight we could have done with sitting down a little at the beginning and planning something more structured, but oh well, you live and learn!

We will definitely take part again next year, as we had a lot of fun. A lot of people were bringing all kinds of costumes and actors etc to the event, photographing them in all different scenarios, but we both took the approach of a giant photographic scavenger hunt. We also kept our kit to a minimum, as it was hard work carrying a load of stuff around all the time!

I was quite pleased with the results! Taking part has really encouraged me to get out with the camera and photograph more, because there are so many cool things to look at here! 

morgens in Wien / mornings in Vienna

nachdenklich / contemplative

am Spielplatz / at the playground

es wird gebaut / under construction

Fotografie ist Abenteur / Photography is an adventure

im Burggarten / in Burggarten

Der Golf. Das Auto. / The Golf. The Car.

herbstliches Wien / autumnal Vienna

in der Mitte / in the middle

mehr Menschlichkeit für Tiere / more humanity for animals

zusammen / together

ICH BIN das ultimative Selfie / I AM the ultimate selfie

eingezäunt / enclosed

gelb / yellow

Kunst / Art

Wunder der Technik / wonder of technology

Wenn ich könnte, wie ich wollte... / if I could, I would...

Abdruck / cast

Kontakt / contact

Stein/steinig / Stone/stony

oben/unten / over/under

so geht's auch / that also works

vergessen / forgotten

fertig / finished


Friday 3 October 2014

Project 333

I was going to try Project 333 for the next three months. The idea is that you pick 33 items to wear for 3 months, no more, no less. That has to include jewellery, outerwear and shoes, but doesn't include underwear, work out wear or sentimental jewellery that you never take off (like a wedding ring, or in my case 2 treasured rings and a bracelet plus all the studs in my multiple piercings).

I dutifully wrote a list of everything in my wardrobe that I still wear regularly (making a note to remove the items not on the list), then tried to whittle it down. My original list came to 41 different pieces (I didn't count duplicates of the same colour). Should be simple right?

I was reminded pretty quickly that it is not in my nature to be that minimal. Sure, I don't like too much clutter (who knew that this day would come?) and my colour palette ranges from black to white with a hint of grey in the middle, but try and get me to not wear more than 33 items for 3 months? Sorry, no can do.

An online conversation I have been reading raised a valid point today - why is the conversation about clothing amounts so polarised? Why do we only really see the extremes - the women with huge wardrobes with a vast array of garments, or the women with the tiniest ones, with enough clothes to last them a mere 5 days without having to do some laundry?

My suspicion is that anything in the middle is just too boring. It is average. Most women aren't at either extreme, we all fall somewhere in between. Like some women have huge shoe collections, where others (like me) have tiny ones. I've got quite a lot of jewellery (even if I don't wear it that much these days) because jewellery doesn't rely on bits of me meeting some arbitrary average that a designer has picked - pierced ears are pretty much pierced ears. Other women will baulk at any jewellery that is more than a simple pair of studs, a wedding ring and maybe a slender necklace.

But average is boring so we worship the extreme. We envy the minimal bloggers because their wardrobes make their lives look so easy. I'm not sure how easy it is to only have 33 items to choose from - I'd be in a flap over the amount of laundry required just to keep it all looking and smelling fresh - but judging by the amount of blogs about minimalism there are obviously women who lap up this stuff. I wonder if they are actually read by women who have endless amounts of clothes, in a bid to figure out how to organise themselves and their wardrobes.

My brief experience in trying to do the 33 for 3 thing has shown me that I simply have no need for that kind of stress in my life, and I'm perfectly happy the way I am.
 

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