After seeing the resurrection of a vintage Polaroid camera and finding family gold in the garage this week, I started rethinking just how much photography has changed, even since I was a teenager (Yes I know, it was not very long ago). The switch over to digital cameras armed with photoshop, lightroom, and aperture pretty much turns any average prosumer into a ‘photographer’, and it has also made us a bit lazy in terms of really setting up our shots.

It used to  be, the cost of film, processing, and time it would take to do it over again really made the photographer think before shooting away. These days, we test after the fact, taking multiple photos and uploading them to see which ones we would be happy with posting online.

And so came the idea for a photo challenge… What if we took this next week to really stop, think, and create a photo, instead of just snapping away? What if you only had ONE chance to take that picture? ONE shot to set up your white balance, color, lighting, and composition. The challenge is to take only one picture for the day. No over processing, no sharpening, just straight out of the camera goodness!

Are you up for it? Could you do it for 1 day? How about 1 week? Take the challenge and send me your best shot of the week along with commentary and I’ll post it to the challenge wall with a link back to you.

Go out, and be a photo ninja!

It seems like all of my fellow photo a day friends had the same idea this week. Everywhere I looked I was seeing similar shots, so I thought I’d open up a challenge to everyone else.

The Challenge should you choose to accept, is to uniquely capture: A BICYCLE!

My attempt at close up gear shot:

Paul Giunta saw beauty in his Day 167 project365 shot:

@paulusch captured this nice bike black and white image:

K Jordan Images had a nice follow up with this sepia toned lovely piece:

@GTRacer347 added this lovely throwback Scwhinn:

Possibly my favorite so far is Rudy Lopez‘s:

Another superb shot submitted! This one by Monica Sims:

Someone didn’t follow the rules… eh hemmm @john_jordan, I said BICYCLE

What is your take on this favorite pastime? Submit a link to your photo in the comments and I will display images in the challenge post.

See now folks, this is why I love Project 365, or photo of the day (potd), or Flickr 365, or iphoneography, or whatever you want to call it. It is about community, inspiration, and pushing yourself to continue to get better or enhance your artwork and skills.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been inspired by viewing people’s photo projects. I gain ideas, or build off of concepts and really push the limits of my work, and I hope my pictures help to insight creativity in other’s projects. So when a chain of inspired photos occurred through my fave’s project’s, I thought how cool would it be to challenge everyone else to show me how they would envision the shot…

It all started with @paulgiunta’s Day 102 photo of his gear:

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I (@christawatson) felt inspired by this and wondered what it would look like if there was something behind the wide open glass:

My nifty fifty wide open

Paul Giunta's Day 102 | Wide Open

Then my always favorite, cool and quirky @joeyjoeyjoey decided to step it up with his interpretation:

AND THEN, had another one of Joey’s friend/fan @j00zt1n posted THIS photo:

So the Challenge? How would you do this shot differently? I’d love to see everyone’s take on this…

UPDATE! We’ve come full circle as Paul added his 2nd interpretation to the mix: