I sometimes list Photography as one of my Hobbies but that's not really accurate. It's just an activity that, since smartphones came into my life, is a part of my everyday life.
A photo is an aide-memoire to assist my flagging memory - it may be a photograph, a business card, a memorable meal, a book for the reading list, treasured time with family, the changing moods on our Lake, an offer in a Facebook ad, an idea for a blog post.
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| For the reading list |
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| A meal to remember - not just for the food |
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| A sensational day out |
All of these images or snaps are reviewed regularly and either consigned to the trash (not many) or transferred to my image archive, an external hard disk drive, where I religiously catalogue add metadata: the who, what, why, when and where of the images.
When we are travelling my snapping activity goes into overdrive. I add a small digital camera with a long zoom and several batteries to my arsenal so that I have plenty of juice to get through the day. I try to process these each evening before I forget where they were taken. When I forget this task I create a nightmare for my return home
The result is that I have an external hard drive (and another for backup) with several terabytes of images. Whenever a family member needs a photo of a particular event or a selection to show at family event I can quickly search my collection and come up with the goods.
Recently I came across and joined a local photography group, Lake Macquarie Area in Photos, on Facebook that issues a weekly challenge or two to its members. I love a challenge so I very quickly entered some, it is an opportunity to share some of my better snaps. As I am mostly sharing photos of Carey Bay the focus of my One Place Study it may help me to connect with people from the local area.
I have received lots of positive reinforcement from members of the group and even received an honourable mention for my first entry. Since then I've had a few honourable mentions.
One of last week's themes was "Shimmer", I was overjoyed when my image of the moon's reflection in our Backyard (The Lake) was chosen as photo of the week. As well as gallons of personal satisfaction I was rewarded with my image being posted as the header image for the week on the Facebook Group.
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| My winning Image "Shimmer at Carey Bay" |
I recently discontinued active participation on Twitter and moved my social media activity from that platform to Bluesky (I am @geniaus.bsky.social). While my main focus there is Family History I have been reading unrelated posts. A weekly challenge from a Scottish Lass, Sheena, appealed so I joined her Alphabet Challenge in which one has to post an image related to a them related to the letter of the week.
Three weeks in I am enjoying this fun activity as it is helping me to meet new and interesting connections who participate.
