Monthly Challenges

General Guidelines

These monthly Challenges are in additon to our Photography Walks.  There may be times when you might miss a 'Walk' and this will keep you from feeling left out.  Plus you might want to get out more and use your camera then just on the walks.  Hopefully these Challenges will help. The discussion below will give you a rough idea of what is expected.

These photographs should be current. They should be taken during the time that the Challenge is made and not taken from our archieve of past photographs. A secondary purpose of these challenges is to break us out of ruts and into new forms, or slightly different forms of photography. So the number that you submit is not that important. If you only have the time for one, then that is fine.

Photographs of People, Places and Nature must depict subjects in as natural state as possible. Any changes to a photo after it is taken should subtly enhance it, bring it more closely to what the photographer had hoped for while taking it. The exception to this will be when the theme is "Contemporary", where the point of the exercise is a more artistic bent.

Cropping to removal unwanted elements, removal of color cast, highlight and contrast control and subtle use of digital adjustments, such as  sharpening, gradients, black & white filtering are acceptable enhancements.

Each photograph should reflect your understanding of the subject. Snapshots, which we all take from time to time, should be avoided and would include photos of other's artwork or mere "record photos" of monuments, sculptures, and buildings and are not suitable for presentation at the The Aroostook F-Stops.

Themes for 2012

January         Window Light

February        Boots & Shoes

March             B&W

April               Water

May                Macro

June               In the Garden

July                 Sun Rises/ Sun Sets

August            Night/Lights

September      Reflections

October           Long Exposures

November       Vintage

December....... Hands

Themes for 2011

January         New Snow

February        Sports

March            Architecture

April               Textural

May                 Shapes

June                Flowers

July                 Motion

August            Transportation

Septmber       Color

October          Noir

November      Black and White

December       Bokeh

Theme Explanations