photo challenge: SPARKLE

A few weeks ago, Mridula from Blogaloorgirl's Blog sent me an email asking me if I'd done any photography recently. And I hadn't, not really. Which got me thinking. I love photography much! But at times it's hard to find objects or subjects to talk to your lens, especially when inspiration is running low. When there's a lot going on in my head, I find I'm not looking around at the world with as much wonder as I need to restock the proverbial well, to paraphrase Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way.

So... I suggested a photo challenge! I've done a couple of courses in photography, and I've found it's much easier to capture something worthwhile when you know what you're looking for! It's great to have a theme to work with; it gets the creative juices flowing and it helps me open my eyes to what's been staring me in the face all along!

Luckily, Mridula accepted, and she came up with the first theme: SPARKLE.
Which was a challenge for me, to say the least ;) I don't know whether anyone who knows me would actually classify me as the outgoing type, but in my own skin, I feel I'm more of an introvert. I get it, it's a 'duh!' thing to say. But much of the beauty I see around me gets chewed on and put away on shelves in my mind, never seeing the light of day. Never mind sparkle!
But I love a good challenge, it really works for me - as far as photography is concerned anyway ;) - so I set out on a quest to find sparkle in my world :)

Here is a rose from the bunch of beautiful flowers we got as a present for our wedding anniversary last Wednesday. The water drops didn't really want to sparkle much, even with the low sunlight I had to wait for - for days! Which isn't that strange, really, considering we've been married for 10 years now. Nothing wrong with that, just that it's more the soft light of a place to call home than it is the dazzling sparkle I was looking for ;)

Here are some shards of glass I found in the bike lane on my way to the shops. They shouldn't be there, for various reasons, and I felt they might do prettier work on my coffee table, too. Oh, the funny looks I got when I got down on my knees to pick some up ;) I love that - giving people something to talk about around the dinner table ;)

I still didn't feel like I got all the sparkle out of the challenge, so I added the one piece of costume jewelry I own into the mix to see what that would do... I don't know what it is, but - there wasn't any real sparkle to be had... You know, the kind with the light-star, refraction or whatever it's called... Maybe my lighting wasn't what I thought the early Autumn sun was going to be, and maybe I just didn't do it right, but I couldn't get what I was looking for.

So here we are, at the biggest cliche of them all, when it comes to sparkle... It suddenly hit me! If I'm such an introvert, at least by my own sense of being, then surely the sparkle must be inside! From the senses being tickled in every way imaginable to the world of possibilities behind it all - eyes are the windows to the soul (to stick with cliche!). If it sparkles anywhere, surely it must be there! Not brilliant photography, but honest sparkle if I say so myself :)

There. That's it. My ode to the sparkling beauty inside :) Hop on over to Mridula's post to see what she came up with!

Now I had to come up with a new theme, and here it is: QUIET.
That might not be a much easier thing to capture, but the word's been playing in my head (for various reasons - haha) for weeks now, and I couldn't ignore it...

Our next deadline is Sunday 26th September (if that's okay Mridula?) - but we might post sooner, depending on how it's going. If there is anyone out there reading this, who wants to give it a go too, whether it's sparkle, quiet or the next little/big theme, I'd love to see! Send me an email or leave a comment here or over at Mridula's!