Challenge! Cameraderie Challenge #53: "A sense of Place, a sense of Time..." WINNER ANNOUNCED

Location
Talent, Oregon (far from the madding crowd)
Name
Miguel Tejada-Flores
Start Date
Dec 3, 2021
End Date
Jan 3, 2022
Start Date December 3, 2021
End Date January 3 2022

I was just lucky enough to attend a large retrospective exhibition of the photographs of Dorothea Lange, who was known for her compelling, revealing, disturbing, and often emotional 'Documentary' photographs. Lange once wrote:

“My own approach is based upon three considerations. First – hands off ! Whenever I photograph I do not molest or tamper with or arrange. Second – a sense of place. I try to picture as part of its surroundings, as having roots. Third – a sense of time. Whatever I photograph, I try to show as having its position in the past or in the present.” (NOTE: the underlining and boldface added are mine)

Looking at Lange's photographs, and thinking about my own, has made me wonder a lot about these second two elements of her photography - a sense of PLACE - and a sense of TIME. Incorporating these in any photograph, sounds both simple and also complicated. It also seems to me to be a worthy subject for this last Challenge of this year - a year which has been challenging for so many of us. So I am making it the 'theme' of this new Challenge - a photograph which conveys both place and time.

As always, any and all interpretations of the above are and will be welcomed, whether they are new photos taken specifically for this Challenge, or older ones which you feel are good interpretations or illustrations. The Challenge will run throughout the entire month of December, 2021 - and end at the end of the 3rd day of the new year, 2022. Obviously with holidays, vacations, family gatherings, travel, and a million and one other things which both enrich and disrupt our lives, it is a complicated period - but one which I hope many of you can find the time - and possibly the place as well - for creating or finding entries to this Challenge.

As usual, this Challenge will consider originality, technical merit and artistic vision.

No change to the tried and trusted rules, which are as follows:

1. Either take pictures that match the nominated theme or select some from your portfolio. You must be the photographer that created the images in order to enter it.

2. Only one entry per challenge, please. If you want to withdraw an entry and replace it with another, that is OK, but you must make it clear in the post containing your replacement pictures that this is what you've done. You can add or change the title and add to the edit line to let everyone know.

3. The decision of the curator at the end of the challenge is final - don't give him/her a hard time about it: this is just a friendly photo challenge, after all!

4. The winner will assume the responsibility of curator for the next Challenge, and as soon as possible post a message in a new thread in the Cameraderie Photo Challenges forum, with details of the new theme. Don't forget - the opening message must include a copy of these instructions, which also double as the rules.

5. The curator cannot enter in his or her or their own challenge.

Hope you enjoy the challenge and I am looking forward to seeing the contributions.
 
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Love the theme! I'm fully aware that this might merit a lot more deliberation than I put into this, but at times, the here and now is the time and place to focus on - because transience is at the core of existence.

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A token of gratitude in beautiful decay ...

M.
 
Time: some time in the mid to late 1950s - I was 8-10 y.o.
Place: the old jetty at Wynnum, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland.

My mother and I went there for an outing one day.
This is one of the first pictures I ever took, using a Kodak box camera.
The boy had just caught a fish.
I don't think that this jetty exists anymore, and the boy would be older than I am, 74 y.o.

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This is a scan of a print on Agfa (?) stipple paper.

I hope this complies with the rules. I don't think I've ever entered a challenge before, anywhere.
 
Time: some time in the mid to late 1950s - I was 8-10 y.o.
Place: the old jetty at Wynnum, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland.

My mother and I went there for an outing one day.
This is one of the first pictures I ever took, using a Kodak box camera.
The boy had just caught a fish.
I don't think that this jetty exists anymore, and the boy would be older than I am, 74 y.o.

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This is a scan of a print on Agfa (?) stipple paper.

I hope this complies with the rules. I don't think I've ever entered a challenge before, anywhere.

Your photo definitely complies with all the rules, John - and thank you for entering this Challenge!
Also, thank you for your description of how and when the photo was taken. Although words or descriptions are not required for this Challenge, sometimes they can help the viewer place an image in a larger or a different context.
 
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This is a picture of my 912 running on a portable dyno. I was pleased when I downloaded it as I thought it captured the moment well. I knew it was the only time I'd get to have the car tested on a dyno so I declined the offer to 'ride' in the passenger seat while the operator ran the car through its paces. This happened at a 912 bbq put on by a member of the 912 Registry who was kind enough to 'rent' the dyno for the day so we all could run our cars on it. The spinning wheel and the blur of the hot exhaust gasses coming out the tail pipe over by the brake light really add to the power being generated by the car.
 
A quick reminder to everyone: today is December 19th, which means this month's Challenge - A sense of Place, a sense of Time - will still be running for approximately 2 more weeks, until its closing date, January 3 of the New Year. There have been some fine entries already, but for those who have not entered but who are intrigued by what this Challenge encompasses, I urge you to consider its possibilities, either among your existing images, or ones you have yet to take.
 
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Not sure if this one meets the criteria for the challenge. Please delete it if it doesn't. I shot this with my nikkormat ft2 and I don't recall what lens. (I think I borrowed or rented a zoom because at the time I only had a nikkor 50 f2) This was during a 1980 campaign stop at an airport in Michigan. I also caught the Carter stop that year at the local college but this shot has more extras.
 
Olli

My dad was with the 3rd Inf Division, 15th Regiment and he fought from Sicily to Italy, to France, and finally in Germany. He ended his war heading south to the Berchtesgaden area and he passed through Dachau a couple of days after the Allies took the camp. He was horrified at what he saw. He told me that I MUST go there if I went to Germany. After college, I entered the service and was sent to Germany near Nuremberg where I worked in intelligence. I went to Dachau and have been back many times on trips. My kids have been there many times.
On my wife's first trip to Germany, her first stop was Dachau which she remembers vividly. Over many trips, pleasure, and business, I made it a rule to visit the camps and have been Buchenwald, Mauthausen and Bergen-Belsen, It is hard to try to rate the horrendous nature of the camps. They all are heart breakers but for some reason, Bergen Belsen really hurt me the most. Maybe it was the mass graves or maybe it was the headstone of Margit and Anne Frank that did it to me. My wife was overcome by the mass graves and it was quite a time before we could talk. Hard to understand how humanity became non-existent during that time frame. The sign at Dachau implores us to Never Forget but every day, it seems as if we have let it slip from our minds.
 
Two of my moments in time and place. The first one is of my grief-stricken wife at one of the mass graves at Bergen-Belsen which had to be dug on the day the Allies liberated the camp. The last one is of my father in the Alps as the war was winding down. He was on a well-deserved time off and he is in the back row, 4th from right with a beer bottle covering his face. He had a hard time talking about his time in the war and he passed away at age 50. He had what he called shell shock which made for a tenuous childhood for me. He became much calmer before he passed with a massive heart attack.

age 5
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Two of my moments in time and place. The first one is of my grief-stricken wife at one of the mass graves at Bergen-Belsen which had to be dug on the day the Allies liberated the camp. The last one is of my father in the Alps as the war was winding down. He was on a well-deserved time off and he is in the back row, 4th from right with a beer bottle covering his face. He had a hard time talking about his time in the war and he passed away at age 50. He had what he called shell shock which made for a tenuous childhood for me. He became much calmer before he passed with a massive heart attack.

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Thank you for your entry, Mel. I'm using the singular form of the noun - entry - and not the plural, 'entries' - because in this Challenge, one can only enter one photograph - and, additionally, it needs to be a photo which you have taken yourself. I'm assuming, then, that the first photo - which you said is of your wife - is your entry? And that it is one you took yourself? Please correct me if I am wrong here.

And, for what I hope are obvious and understandable reasons, the 2nd image which you posted - and old WWII-era photo of your father with other people - is not an official entry. Each person who enters in this Challenge can only submit ONE official entry; although, as the Instructions state, everyone has the right to change their initial entry to another one, provided that they make it clear, in their second or subsequent posting, that the newly posted photograph is in fact their new official entry, and thus replaces the first or preceding one or ones.

To be clear, though I sincerely appreciate the multiple photographs you posted, for this Challenge, final judging will be made only based on the one photograph which is your official entry. I hope that's clear.

Thank you again for participating.
 
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