October 2021

Welcome to October...

...depending on where you live, Fall is getting into full swing.

Have you ever heard this expression "OCTOBER IS TO PHOTOGRAPHERS WHAT APRIL IS TO ACCOUNTANTS"?

Even if you aren't a portrait photographer, you can probably relate. Amazing photos are created in October.

A lot of changes happen in October: Leaves drop, colors peak and then fade. You can feel it and you can smell it. Look in any tree lined street, the countryside or in the forests and you will see an array of colors from yellows, golds, oranges, reds and greens.

The colors of Autumn make it a fantastic season to take photos. With the sun rising later, it is a great time for sunrise photography. The yellow, orange, and brown hues make for fabulous backgrounds; Long shadows make for interesting patterns.

Be aware of your surroundings. Look for leaves, patterns, colors, and textures... and, especially the light.

As we get close to Halloween, look for pumpkins and lights and costumes and candy. Watch the world around you as it embraces the month that ushers in the Holiday Season.

Take a drive.... away from the city. Look around you. Notice nature. The wildlife is preparing for the cold months. Explore. Walk. Hike. Immerse yourself in nature and the scenery.

Experiment with filters (especially polarizing filters). Shoot in the early morning or evening. Take advantage of overcast days. Slightly underexpose your shots.

If you have have participated in our community for awhile, think about what makes October this year different from the others? Are there things you haven’t captured before?

We are daily photographers, we notice things. Be inspired by nature; especially the small details.

Explaining the Prompts

The weekly themes designed to fire up your imagination, increase your skill level, learn new techniques and share your joy of the photography world!

PICTURE YOU week just might challenge you the most! Getting in front of the camera is important in so many ways. It teaches us how others feel when the camera is pointed at them and it allows us to be more comfortable in our own skin. When we include ourselves in a picture, it documents our days, but you don’t HAVE to be in the photo at all if it does not fit your style. There is freedom in this week, but we do challenge you to turn the lens around and get in front of it! (You have a million pictures of your family, but none of yourself, right)? Each PICTURE YOU week will have a GUEST PROMPT where a member from our community will be given the opportunity to write a prompt for us to follow! The guest prompt is designed for you as valuable members to stretch your creative abilities and show us what you’ve got!

PICTURE MORE is ‘technical week’. The prompts will let you explore your creativity with a technical agenda. This is the week to try new skills, revisit old ones and maybe learn some really interesting tricks. You might just surprise yourself with your technical genius! One of the greatest things about photography is its diversity. We will be exploring camera angles, symmetry, breaking the rules, negative space and other tricks to make your photography evolve! During this week we will be stretching ourselves with skills that may range from techniques such as light trails, long exposure, lens zooming and panning, or we may switch things up and add some processing fun!

PICTURE COLOR is all about color, a specific color on a Sunday chosen by one of the creative team that will be featured exclusively! Sometimes you will easily find these colors and other times these colours may be more difficult to find. Be patient - sometimes the color will just ‘pop’ out at you in the most unpredictable way! The color prompt week will most definitely make our galleries look lovely!

PICTURE STYLE is all about your style within different styles! Landscape, street, night, travel, portraiture, still-life, wildlife photography and other picture modes are going to be stylized to create some amazing photographs. We will also be playing around with shutter speed and double exposure to give your photos a different “pop”.

EXTRA CHALLENGES: Each month we are including SELF PORTRAIT, WHERE I STAND and MACRO MONDAY challenges. We also have the new QUARTERLY CHALLENGES. First up is PICTURE YOUR WORLD, where you hopefully will return to the same place each quarter to take the same photo (see the seasonal changes), second is the SCAVENGER HUNT that went down so well last year and finally we thought that SONG LYRICS will give us all a bit of a challenge, all totally up to you, if you want to incorporate this into your daily photo.

Daily Prompts