Deadlines

If my blog had deadlines, I would probably be much better about posting things. If I had faithful readers and paid ads down the side instead of a list of the other blogs I read and the Daily Puppy, I would feel more of an obligation, I'm sure, and make the time for it. As it is, I put items I want to blog about on a list which then carries over to the daily list of things to do not all of which ever get done.

The day after tomorrow, though, is the deadline to enter photos in the photo contest being held by the Charlottesville Photography Meetup Group, which I recently joined. Each paid member can enter up to three photos. The top 10 photos will be mounted as 20 x 24 prints for the fancy reception on July 23, and the people who took the top three photos will win prizes that I imagine will be awesome. I'll actually be at a wedding in Chicago that weekend so will miss the party and the announcement of the winners. That's okay, because I don't really expect to win anything. I don't consider myself a serious photographer; I have enough other time- and money-consuming hobbies already to start taking photography as seriously as most of the other meetup group members do. The photos I entered, for example, have not been post-processed or put through software such as Adobe Photoshop or Gimp. They are as they were taken; I haven't tweaked anything. There are people in the group who will not show other people even one photo that has not been post-processed and who would likely be appalled that I am about to post three here. I just like these pictures and hope that other people might, too. Taking them made me happy, and sharing them with other people makes me happy. Would I be happier if I put in the time tweaking and fine-tuning them? Maybe, but I doubt the difference in happiness would be enough to justify the time it would take, especially on the up-side of the learning curve.

All that said, here are the photos I entered. The first comes from our month in Hue and actually made its debut on my trip blog accompanying some musings about how I used to be a better photographer than I am now. I like the depth of field in this shot, though I achieved it only by accident. Having just gotten a basic lesson in digital photography from the same friend who introduced me to the CPMG, I could probably do this shot now intending for it to come out as it did, but that doesn't mean I like this accidental shot less.

The second photo is from our hotel in Reykjavik, Iceland, in February. It was one of those quickie things as I walked up to the room and looked down at the spiral the stairs were making. Somewhere, I have a film print of the spiral stairs at the Vatican, and they're much more glamorous. What can I say? These stairs may not be glamorous, but they're fun to me.

The final photo I entered is one that appears in this blog just a post or two back, when I wrote about my trip to New Mexico in April. The hand sits on a shelf in one of the huge prop rooms maintained for In Plain Sight. I took several shots of the hand, but this is my favorite. It's a simple shot, not much color and not many things to see save for the hand and the rolls of paper beside it. Simple but somewhat elegant? Maybe that's what drew me to it.

If you want to check out the competition, all the photos entered can be seen here. I think mine are photos 61-63. Younger son will probably add three of his to the collection tonight or tomorrow; I expect they'll be better than mine. Still, you never win if you don't play the game, so I might as well play. Stay tuned for a month, and I'll post the outcome sometime after July 23.