May 2023

“The world’s favorite season is the spring.
All things seem possible in May.”

– Edwin Way Teale

Regardless of which hemisphere you live in, May is likely to be welcome! The extreme weather of the past few months is behind you. As your world is warming up or cooling down, it holds bright promises for lovely days ahead. And that means so many inspiring opportunities to pull out your loyal friend, your camera!

No doubt you will be outside enjoying nature, so looking for the color coral in flowers, fruit, and maybe even decor will be a welcome challenge. Its sunny, cheery hue melds its warm neighbors on the color wheel in such a happy way.

By contrast, through black-and-white photography, you’ll see things differently as you concentrate on light and shadow. With days and nights almost equal in length, there should be little trouble making time for early or late shadows.

The month will give you time to practice two different genres. Street photography will offer another excuse to get outside and enjoy this time of year. Closer to home, creating flatlays will be an opportunity to display your favorite things in a unique way.

Finally, documenting your daily routine will help you place value on the little things in your life whether inside or out.

Yes, all things photographic do seem possible in May!

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.