August Challenge - Jen's last words

Umm…August is over already?? This challenge just flew on by, didn’t it? It didn’t really go as expected for me; I wish I had been able to post daily and connect more with Jon and the three of you during this month, but with school, work schedules, and state-skipping all battling for the front burner, it just wasn't possible.

I was a little (a lot) nervous about the pictures I was expected to take and post, not because I didn’t know what to photograph, but because 1. Let’s face it, there are some pretty awesome people reading this blog (that’s you) and some easily intimidated people guest-posting on this blog (that’s me), and 2. I didn’t want this challenge to make me annoyed with photography. When I was taking photography classes (read: 1 photography class), I had to shoot a certain number of rolls each week for an entire semester. Awesome, right? Not if you can’t choose what you want to photograph - I was shooting roll after roll of expensive beautiful film on subjects that my evil professor chose, and not having much fun doing it. After that class, it took me a solid month to even think about picking up a camera again. You can see how I would be worried about entering a challenge that locked me into 26 ridiculous rules, eh?! Fortunately for all of us, the month went very well and I only cried the one time.

One thing I wanted to mention along with each picture was the reason why I took that particular picture. Don’t get me wrong, there were days where I just yelled “what starts with the letter _?!” repeatedly until those around me became irritated enough to locate anything around them that started with that letter. I, for instance - not my best work. Planning ahead is for winners. Write that down.

My favorite letters of the month were A, G, and V. They were the favorites because they came to me naturally; I saw what I wanted in my mind before the camera was at my face. For A, I was at my mom’s house in California, relaxing and listening to my brother Jonah play his guitar. If you haven’t had the opportunity to hear that kid play/sing, make it happen – it’ll break your heart. His guitar is to him what my camera is to me. A for his arms - around his guitar - was the obvious choice for day one.

The letter G fell ever-so-gracefully on the day I went wine tasting in Napa with some awesome friends, so a picture of grapes wasn’t at all difficult to procure (I have about 400 other vineyard/grape pictures, if you’d like to see).

V for vitamins was so much fun to set up. That’s it.

This challenge was an interesting one. It was good to force myself to see beyond what was right in front of me, if only to recognize what letter something started with. As the days went by, I began looking at everything in terms of this challenge. It’s refreshing to view your surroundings a little differently sometimes. I suggest challenging yourself with this or another photo project - what you're able to see might surprise you.

Thanks to Jon for allowing me to join him in this challenge, and thanks to you for following along! I hope to be back soon. 

Happy end of summer...