"White Raspberries And Fig" by libraryman

The theme for the February Challenge will be “I Ate This”. Each day, take a photo of something you ate, and post it to the photochallenge.org pool on Flickr. When you add it to the pool, be sure to tag it “februarychallenge2010″.

"Yet Another Sushi Roll" by moofbong

If you have never tried food photography before, now is your chance. Or you could use this opportunity to explore some new types of cuisine. Get out there, show us what you ate, and above all have fun!

"dan dan mian, upclose", by chotda

Over 250 photographs were tagged with “februarychallenge” at Flickr and Zooomr. Way to go! Below are just a few of my favorites…

Speaking for myself, even with the few photos I submitted, I have found that even now I’m more aware of the colorful opportunities around me. I see more contrasting color while trying to compose a shot, and I think it’s making me a better photographer.

Thanks again for joining us, and check back here soon for the April Challenge announcement.

I am a looser, and I did not effectively participate in my own challenge!

There, now I feel better. This month turned out to be a poor choice, for personal reasons. Everything is fine, I just did not have the time, motivation, or energy to accomplish the February Challenge, like I wanted.

So, many of you did an awesome job of shooting with a color theme each week. I saw that a lot even shot more than the basic 3 shots, but chose your own favorites to blog about. Well done.

I’ll gather up the majority of your shots, and blog a recap here, in a few days. I already have an April Challenge planned, and I’ll be announcing that in a week or so. Hopefully, I can get this back on track.

So, this challenge is really a hard one. It’s turned out to be much more difficult than I thought to hunt down a few good photos each week. The first lesson I learned was that it’s probably easier to commit to shoot every day. At least that way, I know when I’m getting a shot, every day.

This month I’m finding myself procrastinate my shots until the end of the week. Then I’m rushing. What makes it worse is that I’m working my 12 hour shifts Wednesday through Saturday. Killer for the schedule. In March I switch to the other end of the week. Too late though.

Scheduling aside, I am really enjoying the difficult task of searching for my color each week. Next week I’m going to try and shoot all three images in the beginning of the week.

Today’s submission to the February Challenge launches my new color, blue.

When I’m driving home from work in the morning, I get to see some gorgeous sunrises. I stopped today and took this one, looking back east, over the mountains. The focus wasn’t the best, but I was mostly interested in the sky’s beautiful colors at this time of the morning.

I’m also submitting this photo for this week’s 2008 Challenge. My community stretches a bit during my work week. I work an hour’s drive from home, and my drive is quite pretty.

Today we took the kids to the park. The Princess and The Padawan brought their bikes and we let them ride all over the place. With our small backyard, opportunities like this are great for us all to get out and stretch our legs.

I set out to capture a nice grassy shot with my 10-20mm ultra-wide angle lens. It developed just like I wanted. The pretty clouds were a great bonus too!

So, now that it’s here, let’s keep tabs on each other’s work by tracking our tagged images on Flickr and Zooomr, the primary location for the participants in this challenge. On Flickr, take note of photos that were taken in February, 2008. (I’ll be tagging my photos “februarychallenge” AND “februarychallenge2008″.)

Here’s my first few images to start us off. I’ve chosen green as my color for the week. Since this week starts on Friday, and ends this weekend, I figured that I only had a few days to get a few good ones. I won’t only shoot 3 a week. In fact, I hope to shoot much more. When I’m done, I think I’ll gather my favorite three from each week. Those may be what I publish in my Challenge book.

Let’s review the guidelines:

• Shoot with one color theme each week.
• Shoot three images a week.
• Shoot each of the 5 weeks of February.
• Tag your images, “februarychallenge”, at Flickr and Zooomr.
  • Now, also consider submitting each photo, at Flickr, to the PhotoChallenge group pool.

In the first post, I showed you a few really great Color Theory focused photos. Head back there to see them again. This time, I’d like to help you read some really great, detailed articles that will help every photographer understand the use of color in their work. Each of you should read these articles.

• Color Theory Fundamentals for Digital Photography
• Colour Theory as Applied to Landscape Photography
• How To Make a Color Infrared Photo

Then in December we shot a portrait a day, all month long. This challenge forced me to grow to love portraiture so much, that I’ve adapted my own business plan to focus primarily on shooting portraits. I’m now working to get equipment that is better suited for taking portraits.

So, following the every-other-month pattern, February 2008 is the next month for a challenge. I’ve worked hard the last few weeks developing some ideas and even bouncing them off of a few wise photographers I know.

I’ve decided to pursue a Color Theory challenge. What is Color Theory? Well, for our purposes it is basically making a concerted effort to capture an image with one single color overwhelming the majority of the image. Basically, your photo should be primarily one color. Be creative though, I’d love to see photos that capture a color in a new and unorthodox way.

For fear that I’m not getting it across to you, I’ve included a handful of great examples below.

Now, here’s where it gets tricky. I want three images a week. Not bad, no? It’s not one a day, but not one a week. Additionally, I want you to choose the same color for the whole week. Then, a new color for the following week. Since February spans 5 weeks, you’ll need to have 5 different colors, with 3 images each. Get it?