Souvenir Foto, Alphabet Edition

I’m doing the latest edition of Souvenir Foto, Tristan’s creative photography group over on Flickr. This time we are doing a photo a day that represents one letter in the alphabet, in any order we choose, for thirty days. Here is a brief course description:

Each day you will choose ANY letter your heart desires, to represent what you will be photographing that day. The letter doesn’t have to represent a noun (person, place or thing) but can be an action or descriptive as long as you can make that image make sense to the letter you chose, go for it.

Example: If you chose ‘B’ as your letter for the day. You can go:

‘B’anana, ‘b’each, ‘b’lue etc. or you could try to take a shot that represents ‘b’ad, ‘b’eautiful, ‘b’enevolent. This will allow you more creative freedom and also open up more opportunities for you.

No duplicate letters, by the end of 30 days you will have completed the alphabet (in any order that you choose).

So, why am I telling you this, other than to say so far I have had loads of fun? Well, because I have decided to up the ante by writing something with each picture and posting both on this blog.

I’m not one to think visually. Generally, I take pictures because they have inspired in me a thought or story. I rarely walk around and think, “My, that beach ball looks amazing against the azure of the sky–I think I’ll take a picture because the contrast in color really resonates with me. click.”

1. You will rarely, if ever, see me write that something “resonates with me.” Same thing goes for “speaks to me.” I hate, hate, hate those phrases. They’ve entered the realm of Heavily Relied Upon Blogger Words and Phrases like swoon, blush, heart, abundance, and references to finding yourself or your inner children.
2. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Instead, I’ll see a beach ball and think, “That reminds me of the time Mikey tossed his beach ball in the rose bushes and it popped like a gun going off and Mikey, not knowing things could explode so violently, spent the next three days muttering to himself, ‘The ball popped. The ball popped. The ball popped.’ like someone suffering from PTSD. That was funny. I think I’ll write it down and use the picture for reference. click.”

And still, you are probably thinking that all of this is well and good but…the point? Oh, you’ll see the point of this post soon enough, my friend, when your rss reader is overloaded with 1-2 posts a day from me, the person for whom brevity is a rarely reached goal [e.g., this post]. By the end of thirty days you’ll be swooning over the “mark as read” button in Google Reader or finding the unsubscribe button really speaks to you.

I’m Doing This Because I Heart You,
Jules

p.s. Don’t be fooled; it’s all about me. I’m trying to force myself to write creatively everyday. You’re just my unwilling victims.