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Setting yourself a challenge

Now that I'm unable to get out and about as often as I used to for my photography, I've found it increasingly important to actively set a challenge for myself. I love photography - the process, the equipment, the satisfaction of a photograph well taken - but without having something in place to make me pick up my camera, it would languish within the camera bag.
Picture info: Lumix GH4, Voigtlander f/0.95 17.5mm ISO1000, f/8, 1/2000 sec

I got around this last year by setting myself a Photo 52 challenge which, as you may have guessed, means taking a photo a week. I'd undertaken a Photo 365 in 2014 (results here), but thanks to my busy work and increasingly-busy home life, I just knew that I know longer had the time to dedicate to another one. It was tricky enough without a family!
Picture info: Lumix GH4, Voigtlander f/0.95 17.5mm ISO200, f/1.2, 1/8000 sec

Not only does a challenge make you get your camera out, it also makes you look for shots. And not just the every-day (though occasionally that's all you find you've got on the memory card). You start to take light a bit more seriously, grabbing the moment before it is gone as you realise that it probably won't happen again that week, nor indeed again.
Picture info: Lumix GH4, Voigtlander f/0.95 17.5mm ISO200, f/5.6, 1/200 sec

Since finishing my Photo 52 of 2017, I've moved offices with work. No longer am I bang center in the middle of Brighton - now, I'm in the suburban dreariness of Hove. This has given me added impetus for another Photo 52, and so 2018 starts with a new batch of photos. Now that I don't have Brighton's characters, architecture or life to play with, before work or at lunch, my shots now have to come from somewhere else. And so the hunt begins anew...
Picture info: Lumix GH4, Lumix G Vario 12-32mm @ 12mm ISO200, f/7.1, 1/320 sec

(attached images are from my Photo 52 2017)

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