SoFoBoMo

Most of my readers will have heard about NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month (ok, I'm assuming that I have two readers, and that Ian, who actually wrote a novel a couple of years ago, is one of them). You may not have heard about it's newer sibling: SoFoBoMo: Solo Photo Book Month. 2009 will be the second SoFoBoMo; last year 170 started, and 60 completed a 35-photo book. As of the time of this post, 304 people have signed up for SoFoBoMo, and I'm one of them!

The goal is to create a camera-ready photo book with at least 35 photos, all in 31 days. This means that every image must be shot, edited, and placed into the layout within the month.

While there are many reasons to take part, I'm doing it so that I can make an attempt at a focused theme for a series of images. I've done small photo series in the past — three or four photos of a subject — but I've never put effort into a longer work. So what does my future hold?

My photo book needs a theme to tie the photos together. But what? I have some ideas:



Santa Barbara Hikes — a series of images from the various hiking trails around Santa Barbara. I enjoy hiking, and I enjoy dragging my camera along with me, so this is a natural option. However, I almost feel it's a cop-out — I can easily get 35 photos by going on just four or five hikes, which is easy to do in the 31 days the project allows for. SoFoBoMo is supposed to be about the journey, not the completion of the project. So maybe I should strive for something more complex?






Portraiture — a portrait study of about twelve friends, perhaps three photos each. I really enjoy portraiture, so this project would be a lot of fun. Scheduling twelve portrait sessions with friends (do I even have twelve friends who would lend their image) would be the major challenge here. Actually, determining if I even have twelve friends might be a challenge too ;->






The Magic of Photography — a series of illusions. I'm not sure I can possibly complete a 35 image book in only 31 days. The above image took over ten hours of my time: an hour of prep, an hour of photography (not counting twenty mins of costume/makeup change) and over eight hours of post processing. If I tried 35 of these, I'd need to spend eleven hours every day on the project! Granted, some take much less time (hide and seek took only a couple of hours total), but I still think it's probably impossible. I could maybe do five or ten images and show the various steps as separate images to get to 35, but I think that's cheating.




I have some time to decide, as SoFoBoMo doesn't start until May. I'd appreciate any suggestions for other topics, words of encouragement, or acknowledgments of my insanity!