Daily Challenge The April 2020 Challenge - discussions and insights

Since the lockdown I have been working 10 hour days 7 days per week at home. My work now feels like a near impossible level of a time management game like diner dash. It’s not my usual work - I volunteered for deployment - it is unrelenting and stressful but needs done. It is also satisfying that I am doing something worthwhile. For those reasons I find it difficult to stop working at the end of each day knowing there is always more work to be done.

I kind of need the photo challenge to keep going to force me take a break each day from all this COVID-19 poop!
 
Call me a purist or a masochist but I like the idea of one camera, one lens. However I'm beginning to have more trouble with the posting of one photograph a day on the day it's taken. I live in a small rural parish, am retired and don't travel a great deal, indeed have little reason to travel outside the parish. Over the years I've probably exhausted many of the subjects in the parish, so whilst I would like to feature some of the nearby villages or small towns it seems perverse to make a special trip to then only be able to use one of the photographs taken at that location, and making 30-31 special trips to get a wider variety of subjects is not on. In using one camera, one lens the learning is in the use of the camera for a variety of subjects that would present themselves in a new location, I don't feel that the learning is in using the combination every day. But there, as I stated one day in the challenge I'm usually out of step with my fellow human beings. Given the insistence of posting on the day of capture I might not be participating in future, I'll be just photographing the same subjects and you'll be seeing the same subjects.

In respect of the suggestion of a continued challenge thread starting now I might dip in and out of contributing to that, but it won't be every day by any means. It certainly wouldn't have been today for example, frequent gusty showers. Tomorrow looks better and I feel the need for a change from macro work.

Thanks all for another successful challenge.

Barrie
I have to say "amen", to almost every thing you brought attention to. It fits my situation almost exactly.
I started out with the Pentax 35mm SMC f/3.5, and like it a lot. But, was too much fiddling to get a decent shot. And, to have to try and get "one" usable, was just beyond family and physical limitations. I fell back on the camera phone a few times, and completely miss a few. Then switched to the Panasonic 20mm, for the duration. Much easier, quicker and versatile, but not any more satisfying results, when I take the time and effort, to get it right.
I've been thinking about the future, of my very long pursuit of Photography. I'm not sure what involvement I will have here in future challenges. What ever format is chosen, I will likely "dip my toes in", to try to keep the old thrill alive as long as I'm physically able.
This has been difficult to be faithful to, and enjoyable at the same time. Many thanks, for the extra work invested, by those that kept everything on track.
Now if I can get out there and get something for today. It's getting late, and not much light left. (dark clouds)
 
Another shout out to Matt - thanks for herding the cats.

Loved viewing what everyone else was posting, and as usual the crowd here produces some beautiful work.

Been an interesting month, from my perspective. Some of my previous thoughts on what might be ahead with regards to gear changes have been mostly confirmed. Next comes the decision process, with all the second-guessing and what-ifs this hobbyist/ gearhead is prone to making with gear choices.
 
Since the lockdown I have been working 10 hour days 7 days per week at home. My work now feels like a near impossible level of a time management game like diner dash. It’s not my usual work - I volunteered for deployment - it is unrelenting and stressful but needs done. It is also satisfying that I am doing something worthwhile. For those reasons I find it difficult to stop working at the end of each day knowing there is always more work to be done.

I kind of need the photo challenge to keep going to force me take a break each day from all this COVID-19 poop!
I can’t imagine how you found the time every day to make these wonderful images. Perhaps it was your little bit of zen-time? No matter, I appreciated them tremendously.
 
I’ll try to play in May. I’ll go back to my A7Riii and the Sigma 45. Not quite ready to commit to a small sensor yet.
Actually, I used the Sony/sigma combo in January. I think it’s time to give the X-H1 a time at bat. With the 60 2.4 macro. Let’s see how long I can live with a short tele. It’s not like I have a quadruple-speed three-week lab course on chaos theory to teach online to 35 students or anything like that. 🤪
 
Thanks Matt. These images from April will always remind me of how our little community found a way to make photography fun despite terrible losses all around us. For me, was a highlight each day to log on for that day‘s contributions. Quite interesting to see what each person found to photograph. I will probably continue the daily image in May since I find it a bit therapeutic.
 
I think the two most important effects of this challenge, for me, were 1) the sense of structure it presented during a time of some psychological difficulty for most of us (real difficulty for many - I'm privileged to work in a business classified throughout the country as "essential" and to live in a fairly rural area with very few cases of the coronavirus. But working full time through this has also had challenges of its own and nearly all of us are stressed out), and 2) the group experience, which is hard to get in the physical world right now and all the more appreciated because of it. I've seen more creativity within constraint than in previous challenges I've done here because the constraints were bigger and more real-world than just choosing to adhere to a particular gear or subject or processing constraint.

I stuck with a pretty restrictive concept this time around, but it gave me a good chance to explore several things: my newest addition, the GX9, along with the L Monochrome D JPEG mode, the RAW processing in camera, and the Sigma 30mm f1.4, which I hadn't used too much since getting. I saw this lens more as a utilitarian addition for occasional portraits and product shots (my wife's family sells jewelry so my wife's ears are pressed into service as earring models sometimes) than as a creative lens for general purposes. So in addition to exploring the capabilities of the lens I pushed myself to use the focal length, and I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. I like the overall look I was able to get this month, but I'm really glad to relax and make it optional again!
 
Actually, I used the Sony/sigma combo in January. I think it’s time to give the X-H1 a time at bat. With the 60 2.4 macro. Let’s see how long I can live with a short tele. It’s not like I have a quadruple-speed three-week lab course on chaos theory to teach online to 35 students or anything like that. 🤪
Maybe you can get Ian Malcolm to teach it. :D
 
Although I was planning only to dip in now and again, I found myself making sure I took and posted a photo every day of April. It was hard going towards the end of the month. I envied those who live in more photogenic surroundings. Sure, where I live is pretty, but it’s easy to get bored of fields and cows, and the garden is not yet at its height (unlike July last year). So I was rarely really satisfied with my contributions. I don’t think I’ll take part in the May continuation, but rather I’ll go back to posting in specific threads as and when the muse inspires me.

Whatever I thought of my own efforts, I have to say that the standard of contributions this time was exceptional.

Incidentally, if we’re on a 9 month cycle with the “SI” challenges, isn’t the next one back to January, and then October after that?
 
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Incidentally, if we’re on a 9 month cycle with the “SI” challenges, isn’t the next one back to January, and then October after that?
You're right, of course - the April 2020 Challenge sort of supplanted a "Single in" challenge, so it's January 2021, October 2021. But at the moment, I think it's a bit too early to say if we are willing to stick with the schedule or want to revise it. I'm open to discuss that - but not before June (in the sense of: July is the earliest for another big challenge I'm hosting - you can have all sorts of in-betweens and impromptus, of course!).

M.
 
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