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Vivid Light Photography, digital and film photography online
Self Assignment

What are Self Assignments and Why Do Them? 

We all tend to get in creative ruts sometimes. We start assuming too much about what we can and can't photograph, and about the limits of our equipment, our film, and ourselves. These assignments (hopefully) take you out of your comfort zone and get you photographing things you might not normally shoot. 

The only way to really learn is to do, and the more film you put through your camera the better you'll get.  Plus you get the chance to win a bunch of film.  This months winner will get 20 rolls of the Professional film of their choice courtesy of FujiFilm Professional.

This Month - Patterns

Photographers have always been fascinated by abstract patterns. It could be the random patterns in leaves or water, the layers of an exposed rock face, the interplay of shadows, patterns formed by the curves of the body, or the repetitive patterns in found in architecture. Striking patterns can be found in a line of cabs in busy downtown traffic, or in the umbrellas of pedestrians standing on a street corner in the rain. 

This month's self assignment is to find and capture those patterns. The two examples here are color, but for this type of photography black and white can be particularly striking. Patterns can be repetitive, they can be subtle curves, or they can be sharp edges. They can be many things, but they are abstract, part of the whole.

The one restriction is that you resist the temptation to alter your images in Photoshop. It's all to tempting to alter edges and clone sections to try and make perfection out of an almost perfect image. If an image doesn't quite work out or the moment passes just keep looking. When you start searching for patterns you'll be amazed at the things you begin to see. 

Deadline
July 13th

Film Types
Color or black and white, film or digital.

Lens Types (35mm format used as a reference)
All

Rules
Each month we pick several photos from the previous month's contest that we think are worthy of publication. Photos should be submitted by email in JPEG format, and should be no larger than 1400x1400 pixels, 24 bit color (1.4MB). Overly large images will not be reviewed. Panoramic images may exceed 700 pixels in one direction but should not exceed 1.4MB in total file size. 

By entering the contest you are giving us permission to publish the your photo in the magazine, our back issues section, and any reprints of back issues.

Please include the following in your email:

  • Name
    email address
    Brand & model of camera
    Brand & focal length of lens
    Brand & speed of film used (or specify digital)
    Scanner and/or scanning method
    How/if the image was manipulated digitally
    The story behind the image
    Enter Now

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