August 2023

Another new month already!

We are about to bring the third quarter of 2023 to a close. For many of us, August also brings with it the close of a season. Though the official change from summer to fall, or winter to spring, doesn’t happen until September, the start of a new school year feels like a change in seasons. Even if your life doesn’t revolve around a school calendar, we all see children in the stores shopping for new clothes and school supplies as they anticipate the start of their new school year. Whatever August brings in your world, keep capturing it in a picture a day!

We are starting the month with a few more days of photographing emerald green. This is a great opportunity to photograph those fading summer blooms or emerging spring growth. We will then spend a week looking at our world from a different perspective. It is easy to fall into a rut at this point in the year of a photo a day, feeling like there is nothing new toward which to turn your camera. Sometimes just photographing the same subject from a different angle brings new energy and freshness.

And speaking of freshess, our Picture Life week this month is about photographing all things fresh. Maybe you’ll continue practicing the previous week’s fresh perspective on things or you will turn your camera toward thed freshness in your garden or meals on your table or perhaps a fresh new back to school look.

We’ll close out the month by considering carefully the composition of our photos. Yes, this is something we try to do well with every picture we take, sometimes it helps to have a little reminder about being intentional. Hopefully there will be something new to spark your creativity in this week's prompts. The last few days of August bring us back to color week, where we'll have a bright week of primary colors.

Thanks for taking a little time out of each day to spend it with us.

Happy August!

Explaining the Prompts

Each month is broken into 4 weekly themes: Picture Life, Picture Basic, Picture Color and Picture Style. These are meant to fuel your imagination, keep you engaged, and challenge your creativity. They give you the opportunity to see the same things in different ways.

PICTURE LIFE

Picture Life is where you will be challenged to chronicle your life. Each Picture Life week will have a theme which will give us a glimpse into your day to day life. This is where we all will have the opportunity to get to know one another a little more. We encourage you to show us all aspects of your life, including your beautiful self! In Picture Life week there will be a Where I Stand prompt coupled with a time of day prompt. Here we encourage you once a month to show us what you are doing at a certain time of the day by showing us where you are standing.

PICTURE BASIC

Let’s get technical! This will challenge your creativity with a technical agenda. In these weeks of your year you will look at leading lines, flat lays, lights and shadows, (to name a few!). Don’t be shy to ask for clarification, camera settings or any tips and tricks. We aren’t magicians here, we share our secrets!

PICTURE COLOR

We will focus on a specific color chosen by the Creative Team for these weeks. This year our colour choices will be a little beyond just the basics. You can include a little of the color, go completely monochrome or anything in between. You will likely find that this is one of your favourite weeks.

PICTURE STYLE

Lifestyle, architecture, landscape, sports, golden hour, are just some of the styles you will be encouraged to play around with to try out something new. Some of these might be a little out of your comfort zone. Our hope is that by the end of the week you may have discovered something you love. You might find style in your original photo or add some style in post-processing.

EXTRA CHALLENGES

Along the way you’ll notice a few added monthly challenges sprinkled in to give you extra inspiration.

Macro Monday
For this prompt we encourage you to get in close. Grab your macro lens, macro filters or just crop your photo in post-processing. This is where we can focus on the little details.

Scavenger Hunt
A quarterly challenge where instead of one prompt, you have 4 . Take the 4 photos and make a collage. Make it work for you and your day.

Picture My World
This is a quarterly challenge. We are hoping you can return to the same spot 4 times on these days to document the changing seasons in your world or in your life.

Extra Seasonal Challenge

We are introducing something new this year…. Seasonal challenges. Seasonal challenges are extra technical challenges to help you learn or practice technical skills. The challenge is separate from daily prompts and is there to give you that extra boost if you want to take it on. The extra challenge will occur 4 times a year and will come with technical instruction. Once the challenge is offered, you will have a week to think about it, practice, and then take and post your image.

Daily Prompts