July Monthly Challenge

[mtngal]

I've been having a difficult time trying to come up with a topic this month. But I think I've come up with one that has possibilities. A200user really gave me the idea with his lovely series on Buffalo.

The topic is Home Territory.

This can be anything in or around your house, your yard, or the area around where you live or work. It can be a macro,a close-up,a landscape, a city-scape, a monument, a spouse, a flower. It's all about turning the routine into something interesting, looking atwhat's around you in a new, different way,or sharing something you love about where you live.

Pictures are to be sized 800 pixels on their longest side, be taken with a Pentax or Samsung dSLR, and be taken within the last 90 days.

P.S. I'm out of town right now and don't have anything on the computer that fits the topic, so no example (I usually give one).

[beachboy2]

Harriet, congratulations on your win. A fine shot!

My entry for this month is one of the very territorial New Holland Honeyeaters. Range includes my back yard. Photo taken with K20D, Bigma @ 500mm, 1/350, F9,ISO 200.

bb2

[Monza76]

Here is Cobbs Pond near sunset, a more appropriate view of where I live. (it was Annetteś first choice).
Ira

[mtngal]

bb2- I love your bird. I gather you have his approval to use your own yard?

Ira - I like your fountain pictures - the bubbles do create such interesting shapes.

One of my thoughts with this topic (in fact, my first one) was to suggest pictures of something that you (the photographer) think of as a characteristic of your home area. Something that speaks to you and is the symbol of your home territory. For me, it's the view that greets one at the top of a rise, a couple of miles before the turn-off to my subdivision. It's a small, pretty valley of ranch land surrounded by pine covered ridges of the national forest. Whenever I come up over the ridge I relax, knowing that I've left the crazy urban world behind and am home. For someone who lives in Pismo Beach, it might be a surfer, the pier, a seagull or a pelican. Even if your icebergs are 45 minutes away, are they a symbol of your home area?

I made the topic broader because italsooccurred to me that not everyone is lucky enough to live in photogenic areas (I've lived in places like that over the years - Killeen, Texas came instantly to mind, not photogenic unless you like tanks and artillery). And it's always fun to make something of not much. Recently someone posted a picture of a small collectible on a carpetlit by a flashlight - just like a spotlight in miniature. It was a really neat shot, something from nothing. So I thought that would dove-tail nicely with the home territory theme since collectibles always mean "home" (I have a few collectibles so I know). I'd love to see what someone can make of that, too.

My final thought was that there's lots more ways of interpreting "home territory" and that I shouldn't give too many suggestions, in case I force someone into abandoning some brilliant idea that never occurred to me and I didn't suggest.

I hope everyone has fun with this topic, I plan to over the month.

[snooked]

This was on a Crepe Myrtle Tree in the side yard of my Home.

K20D, Tamron 70-300mm Macro

Ed

[mtngal]

I was beginning to wonder if my topic was too horrible and flat for everyone. I had planned on taking a picture from a particular point, but we've either been down-wind from the Goleta fire or its been hazy. So I'm going to spend some time this weekend taking pictures around here and see what I come up with.

[penolta]

The profusion of insects in our yard is largely the product of my wife's plantings, of which there are many. Over the last weeks I have been taking quite a few pictures ofher flowers, none ofwhich I have yet gotten around to posting (unless they had bugs on them), since there have been so many to process. Here is one - a California Poppy (withoug a bug).

[mtngal]

I love poppies! You are lucky to still have some around - all of ours on the hill have gone to seed and everything is very brown right now. Usually it's about 10 degrees cooler at the house than it is at work (the difference between almost 6,000 feet elevation and sea level), but today the gradient was the other way around!

[Keithw]

Thought I'd get an entry in now before I forget.

A few years ago a pair of housemartins made their home/nest above the window of my daughter's bedroom. Every year they (or their descendants) return, raise a couple of chicks, then head off somewhere warm for the winter.

Here is one of the chicks waiting for his mum (or dad?):

[Black Knight]

mtngal wrote:

I was beginning to wonder if my topic was too horrible and flat for everyone. I had planned on taking a picture from a particular point, but we've either been down-wind from the Goleta fire or its been hazy. So I'm going to spend some time this weekend taking pictures around here and see what I come up with.

Hi H.

IMHO Its a great Topic, I just cannot decide what To post.

Phil