I am my own worst critic and, especially with photographs, need a nudge to publish my work. When my younger photographer son challenged me to take the 52-week photography challenge, organized by Dogwood Photography, I accepted. Gulp.

The challenge is not a competition, note the organizers: photographers “compete” only against ourselves – and commit to share our work in public. Each week’s challenge is in one of 3 categories:

  • Story Telling: Good photographers can take beautiful images of something. Great photographers can tell a story with an image. In this category you will take a prompt and turn it into a photographic story.
  • Compositional Eye: In past challenges we have explored the rules of composition. This year we push the rules even further by using them in specific ways to train your compositional eye.
  • Inspiration: In this wide-open category, we start with a simple inspiration. Use this inspiration as creatively as you can. There are no rules so feel free to think outside of the box.

I set myself some additional rules: if I have to explain a photo in words, beyond the challenge description, I’ve failed. And, come rain, hail or shine, I will capture the image for each week’s challenge that week. And I will note that I emphasize privacy: only rarely, and with permission, do I share photos of other people unless they are public figures, or are in a place or at an event that is obviously public.

Here goes.