So I've convinced a photographer friend of mine to join me in this month long challenge to kickstart both of us back into regular creativity. Having just finished renovating the house. Emptying the house. And having a complete 'change in lifestyle recently' aka aquiring a gentleman friend, the regular painting has fallen onto the backburner. This challenge is needed! Nothing like an incentive, a goal, to get going again.

I was supposed to be travelling now. Camping my way up through the desert of western NSW before heading into Byron Bay and surrounds. Maybe permanently. But those plans have changed and for the moment I'm still in the Central Highlands of Victoria. In winter. And I hate the cold. At least I'm getting a compensation holiday to Adelaide next week, with a swing through the Flinders Rangers (very excited, never been), Broken Hill (Pro Hart anyone?) and the top corner of Victoria including Mildura and Swan Hill. All good, and in a sweet and fabulous way, the holiday still fits in with the photo challenge. I should digress about now and explain the challenge. It sounds really cool to me and I'm quite excited. From the site (methinks they explain it quite well enough already) :

"SoFoBoMo is short for Solo Photo Book Month - a group event where a bunch of photographers all make solo photo books start to finish, in 31 days, at more or less the same time. It's modeled loosely on NaNoWriMo, where participating writers all write novels in a month, and NaSoAlMo, where musicians write and record solo albums in a month....

....For SoFoBoMo, the goal is to make the photos, write any needed text, layout the book, and produce a PDF image of the book, all in 31 days. Rather than confining it to a single calendar month, we use a 'fuzzy month', where you can pick any contiguous 31 day period inside a two month window - this makes it a bit more flexible and encourages broader participation."


I know, I know, I'm not 'a photographer'. But I am 'a creative'. So I say this fits. Plus, as I said, it will kickstart regular creativity AND it can be done while travelling. Much easier than oil painting while travelling. MUCH easier. In fact, I designed my theme so it could be done on the road....

Found Creatures.
Not just straight photography for me, no. Each image will be a unique creation in itself. The theme is animals of the imagination, and each animal will be created in 2D from scraps of nature (bark, leaves, rocks etc) for as long as it takes to record them, and then the site will be returned to it's former state.

And I'll be shooting it all with my iPhone (plus CameraBag).

I'm looking into geotagging the images and I might take shots of the locations (hmm, Pano, yum yum) and include these in the uploads as well. I'll see how well this all fits as I go along. So now I hope you can see how a drive to Adelaide, the Flinders Rangers, Broken Hill and Mildura will fit. Loads of different landscapes equals loads of variation in the flora and geology equals loads of materials to play with!

Hooray.

This is where my Found Creatures SoFoBoMo '09 book will live:
http://www.sofobomo.org/2009/books/wherefishsing/

Here on this blog is where the images will be uploaded as they are taken, before being compiled into the final book. Enjoy!

Hello world indeed. This is the year of finishing things that have been started and it is also the year of the artist. I know I know, it’s February now and these new year declarations should already be firmly in place, or more likely, firmly shoved off the wagon. However, here goes regardless. Inspired by the plethora of ‘an artpiece a day’ sites and blogs, I’m doing my own version. And with a kick up the bum courtesy of my friend Laurel, I’m away. It won’t be an every day thang. Given that at the moment I don’t always have time to cook my dinner, let alone walk the dog, it shall be weekly. So there. A weekly piece of art. Most likely paintings or animations. And, ta-da, here’s number one…