Fall

for me Fall mean photo opportunities and also SONH
so here's some pics from that event to get the bal rolling on this SnapSluts beauty

Vacation

Hi all,

WOW. Seems like we're all pretty busy considering attendance from the last few challenges. Just a quick report, Paulidin won the "Tight Squeeze" challenge, and we apparently have zero submissions from Standard Deviant's intermin challenge... :( Looks like we're all gearing up for summer vacation!

I propose a couple of options:
- We take a sabbatical to get our creative juices refreshed this summer

- We open up SnapSluts super admin privileges to everyone and have everybody run it (this means everybody also needs to agree upon and have access to the same polling software... we can give you guys the login for the one we currently use too).

Thoughts?

Interim Challenge!

Hijack my Heart - Queen

Just walking down the street
one cloudless sunny day
Just minding my business
thinking my thoughts
Nothing much to say
When suddenly I got hit
Imagine my suprise
Your smile came up and zapped me
right between the eyes

Just for kicks - I'm going to pretend I won last week's photo challenge [paulidin - feel free to challenge my challenge, if you want :) ] and I'm going to hijack this post and propose a new challenge for this week!! Lyrics !! Find you favourite lyric and interpret it pho-to-graphi-cally.

Deadline's next Wednesday at the witching hour!

Challenge # 29 - Tight Squeeze VOTE!!

squeezy squeezy squeezy

Cornered by blossoms!

There are worse things...

Pretty sure my head's gonna fit

I'm bringing puppy back. And a cat, too, this time around. I realize this is not lol[anyanimals], but it just worked out this way.

My first choice is my own Dru, who tries to put her head on my lap no matter how inconvenient the logistics:



Then, I visited with Kelley over the weekend and totally shotblocked her to snap some photos of her cat:



This week, my narrowed-down photoset for this challenge only numbers 14 photos on flickr that you're welcome to check out for funsies.

Challenge # 29 - Tight Squeeze

"My baby says she likes her lovin' done
Early in the morning before the rising sun,
'Cause it's tight like that! (Yes, sir),
'Cause it's tight like that! (Yes, sir),
Mmmm,'cause it's tight like that!"

- Dorsey and Whittaker's It's Tight Like That,
as performed by Zack Whyte's Chocolate Beau Brummels (1929)


This week's challenge is "Tight Squeeze". The phrase just occurred to me and I could immediately imagine numerous interpretations! Numerous! Let's say the deadline is midnight next Wednesday!

BONUS POINTS: bring to mind an 80's song by the band Squeeze.

PS, remember: the bonus points don't matter.
PPS, "That's what she said!"

The winner of Challenge #28 - Things that go bump in the night is...

...Paulidin! thanks to these spooky shots:






And a special welcome to Sheri who outed herself as a snap slut (*golf clap*) and came very close to stealing the prize this week.

Paulidin, let's see how many snap sluts you can inspire for #29...

Challenge # 28 - Things that go bump in the night VOTE!!

Another Toy Story

As I was leaving the theatre after watching X-Men Origins: Wolverine, I suddenly caught sight of a toy penguin that had apparently tried to escape from Borders and then had to freeze when people spotted it.

I mean... It's just a theory, but:



And for my second submission, I was going to try to convince my dog to crawl under the bed and take a picture of her... But there was already something under there!:



I was all over the place with my various attempts for this challenge and you can see them on flickr.

Challenge # 28 - Things that go bump in the night

Extra points for catching the monster under your bed on camera.

Deadline this Monday night.

The winner of challenge #27 - change is...

Krublesquared! Below is a reminder of her winning photos:





Speaking of change and today's winner, I came across a collective of women photographers in NYC called Nymphoto today and was pleased to realise how equal the proportion of women to men is here on SnapSluts. It's not an explicit part of our mission, but we do strive to recognize good photography in a space where everyone feels welcome to participate, so let's all give ourselves a good pat on the back. SnapSluts rulezzz!

OK Krublesquared, the ball is in your court...

Challenge # 27 - Change VOTE!!!

Something witty, something witty, something kinda hilarious. (Sorry guys, ultra busy this week!)

And we could all use a little change

"Somebody once asked, 'Could you spare some change for gas?
I need to get myself away from this place.'
I said 'Yep, what a concept,
I could use a little fuel myself
And we could all use a little change.'"

My first submission is silly, but I just thought I'd like to take a picture of change changing to something else:



And my second is a bit of a stretch as I took some photos of flowers changing from one color into another:



As always, click on my photos above to see them in various sizes and check my flickr set for the rest of the photos I took for this challenge, including some failures involving throwing coins and jellybeans in the air.

P.S. I wish I were creative and clever enough to take a photo somehow showing how this world has changed with the passing of Frankie Manning. I'm sure it has, I just don't know where to point my camera.

Spare Change

Some spare change.

The view outside of my window changes as construction progresses.

Original: click here!

Times are changing

Cavemen discovering technology!!!
Picture of a murale taken this weekend in Vancouver

Challenge 27 - Change

For this week's challenge, I decided it would be kind of cool to try out something a little different, and hopefully unexpected... It was tough finding a colourful enough subject on a cloudy, dreary weekend - but I think it turned out about as well as can be expected.

- A change, from colour to B&W!

Challenge #27 - Change

Ahh! Sorry about the delay - I was away over the weekend... ...

So I'll keep this short - this week's challenge is "Change"! (ooo.... ahhh.... the possibilities!)

Let's say it's due next Monday by midnight - voting on Tuesday!

Can't wait to see all of your submissions! :)

SD

The winner of Challenge # 26 - Sleep is...

Standard Deviant! *fanfare* Please pick our next challenge!

Recap of the winning photos:

Challenge # 26 - Sleep VOTE!!

Who's been sleeping in my bed?

I learned something during this challenge. I learned that it's hard to take a photo of a body part of a sleeping person without it looking like a photo of part of a dead person. That's a sad lesson.

Instead, for my first submission, I was able to capture a neat juxtaposition of sleeping elements:



And my second submission was an attempt to capture what it feels like when I first crack my eyes open in the morning:



The other photos I took included my girlfriend, various petsmart pets, my dog, my dog's bed, my bedroom at night... but nothing freaky.

Cat Nap

I surrender any potential imaginary bonus points...

I could go for a nap right about now...

Click here and here to see the originals.

Nature awakens from its wintry slumber....

... it just hits the snooze button a few times before it gets up...


:)

Heavy lids

Here's a view of the last thing I see when I go to sleep.

Challenge # 26 - Sleep

I plan to keep using epigraphs at the beginning of my challenge posts, if I can. But once I decided on this week's topic, I couldn't think of anything that I could say better than Bert and Ernie:





So, the challenge this weak is Sleep. Let's say the deadline is next Wednesday, the 15th, at midnight EST.

Bonus Points (that don't really matter): No humans, cats, or dogs as the subject of your submission!

The winner of challenge #25 - Creative distortion is...

Paulidin! Congrats, you are both creative and twisted! Hehe, I keed, I keed.

As a reminder, here are this week's winning shots:





Mr. P., please post the next challenge and deadline.

Challenge #25 - Creative distortion - VOTE!

closer than they appear...

I went to visit my brother this weekend, and I took this "distorted" picture of my niece. The second picture is to remind us that "objects in mirror are closer than they appear", especially that big truck coming at me!!

Louis

A little misdirection

I took this this challenge as an opportunity to distort the beholder's view of reality, while still taking photos of real things. A little reflection and a little forced perspective go a long way.

For once, I had a chance to take photos at Jam Cellar for a challenge...and I may have spent too much time on that. Anyway, I got a nice angle on a freestanding coatrack and got a glimpse into an alternate Jam Cellareality!


This weekend, I was able to snap some shots of my dog's dream come true: toys that are finally big enough!


* NOTE: toys are smaller than they appear.

I took a pretty wide variety of shots this time around and you can see them on flickr.

Challenge #25 - Creative distortion

Thanks all for your votes...

This week's theme is a transformation of the famous expression "creative destruction", which says that difficult economic times (like these days for instance) generally produce a wave of innovation and creativity, despite the destruction of capital.

So please, exploit the distortion of your lens, your environment or your imagination!!

Deadline for submitting: Monday, April 6 midnight
Vote: Tuesday April 7
Results: Wednesday April 8

The winner of Challenge # 24 - Spring Cleaning is...

Louis! With a whopping 63% of the vote! Congratulations! Please pick our next challenge. (Sorry this was so late, guys, Sandy totally forgot to post the results. Bad slut.)

Here are the winning photos:

Challenge #24 - Spring Cleaning VOTE!!

I'm really happy with the number of submissions, guys!! Louis, welcome back!

Bloom

Contrary to Paul, I do not think flowers are lame. Behold:



I like its textures, and the buildings that I had been avoiding actually add some balance and context to the shot I think.

A Spring, Cleaning

I tried to come up with something interesting in nature first. Maybe a bird picking up some trash. Maybe a bug on a flower eating another bug. A squirrel cleaning its own face. Stupid nature wouldn't cooperate. Still, I took lots of pretty pictures that don't fit this challenge.

Instead, I went with the pun. I had to work pretty hard to sneak up on a Slinky spring toy in the act of vacuuming my living room. I think it looks startled.

First an action shot to show the cleaning:


Then a close-up of that surprisingly helpful spring toy:


You can see the rest of my candidates on my flickr page. They're mostly just shots of flowers and trees and birds. Lame. But there are also many more action shots of the spring, cleaning.

Spring cleaning... products

After a few weeks (read: months) of inactivity, I'm happy to say that just like springs, I'm alive again. I found it difficult to keep up with my photography this winter because it was dark and cold. But hey, spring is back and so am I. Here's my contribution for this week.

Spring Cleaning - The District

As our seasons turned to spring, so did my interest in taking my butt outside (away from the nightclubs) to shoot some photos of our beautiful city. So today I wandered downtown in search of something being cleaned. And thankfully I came across our wonderful downtown sidewalk janitors out and about doing their thing.

And off they go...

Challenge # 24 - Spring Cleaning

"I'll polish the leaves
Make 'em green again,
Shake off the trees,
Change the scene again.
Spring cleaning,
Gettin' ready for love."
- Fats Waller's Spring Cleaning, as composed by Walter Samuels, Leonard Whitcup, Teddy Powell (1937)

Jason pointed out to me that this was the time of the vernal equinox (Mar. 20th), so that the challenge of Spring Cleaning seemed particularly appropriate. Hooray for almost equally long days and nights! If you're near the equator, this will be really obvious. And I hate you for being near the equator.

Anyway, take those two words and run with them! Maybe clean off your camera if you haven't submitted in a while, because of course only new photos are allowed.

NOTE: I believe Ann told me that the deadline is Wednesday, voting on Thursday, like the last time.

BONUS POINTS: bring the equinox to mind.
EXTRA BONUS POINTS: show the entire planet half-bathed in light and dark.

(remember, the bonus points don't matter, but if you get the Extra Bonus points, you'll probably win.)

The winner of challenge #23 - Panorama is...

Pason! AKA Jaul! It's a tie between Jason and Paul! 50/50, right down the middle.

Paul, good luck contacting Jason while he's in Italy. Send messenger pigeons if necessary. If not, go ahead and make an executive decision, and hope he doesn't bump you off you with his new mafia skills when he returns. Death by gelato....

Challenge #23 - Panorama - VOTE!

Train Tracks & Mountains

It was a beautiful day out so how could I resist taking pictures of the outdoors?

For a larger image, click here.

Here's also another shot, but this includes the lake!

For a larger image, click here.

Branches

During my free hour between jobs yesterday I set up my tripod in my backyard and took a few shots of my trees as seen from the ground (lying on a blanket at a picnic perhaps?). Kind of a reverse bird's eye view I suppose. Stitched together with MS Paint.

Click here for a larger view (and then don't forget to click on it with the magnifying lens cursor).

Legoland and Teddy Bears on Parade!

I really should have read the instructions on how to take panoramic photos before I just went out and starting snapping away. Ah, well, it just means that I had to work even harder this time around. Fortunately, the subjects of my photos made this work feel like play! WARNING: these photos are enormous!

I wanted to find a lego landscape I could photograph in such a fashion that it felt like you were actually lego-person-sized... Field trip to the lego store in Woodbridge, VA!



As we were leaving the Lego store in search of food, a long stretch of America's number 1 threat caught my eye and I had to take some pics.



I had downloaded the "hugin" program in hopes that it would stitch the panoramic photos together for me. That did work in a couple cases, like one Lego spread, a Disney photo spread, and a 360 degree photo shoot inside a gazebo. But the two subjects above didn't work in the program, so I stitched those together manually.

The rest of my candidates are on flickr, starting with the 9 that I did stitch together into panoramic views, and continuing with various photos I used for source material and various photos that I thought I might use.