SPC - 'Widescreen' - #3 & #4

SPC - 'Widescreen' - #2 / Photo Friday - 'Nature Walk'

A moment of serendipity where my shot last week for Self Portrait Challenge (but hadn't yet posted) fits the Photo Friday theme for today:

SPC - 'Widescreen' - #1

The theme for September at Self Portrait Challenge is: Widescreen

Friday night, we each (the four members of my immediate family) had individual experiences entirely (or at least partially) separate from one another.

I took Hannah to an all-girls sleepover with her church group of 5th/6th grade girls and their adult leaders.

Harrison had an all-night lock-in at another church in town for Cub Scouts. This is a new adventure for us. Harrison, like his Father, often struggles with facing new experiences. We encouraged Harrison to attend the event to get to know some of the boys and leaders with whom he will be scouting. He was still tentative about it, so I said that I would stay as long as he wanted me to stay. I fully expected that we would stay until the events of the evening wrapped up and that he would want to go home to sleep. Turns out, he decided to stay for late-night movies, sleeping and breakfast.

I ended up helping with a different group (not Harrison's) for most of the evening, so even though we were at the same place, we still ended up separated and having different experiences.

Christy ended up with an evening at home, unexpectedly alone. She got a couple of her school assignments done and got hooked on a Netflix show (Friday Night Lights).

Saturday, we had plans to visit a few Goodwill stores around Indianapolis ("I don't always shop at Goodwill, but when I do, it's half-off Saturday").

Once we were all together, we decided to stop at a Steak 'n Shake for breakfast (a "Second Breakfast" for some of us Hobbits) before beginning our treasure hunting adventures at Goodwill.

Normally, we function very much as a unit (especially on the weekends), but I also see the value in having these individual experiences not only for the experiences themselves, but also for the opportunity to come back together as a family and to share these experiences with one another.

We ended up only visiting two Goodwill stores before we hit the wall of exhaustion, but treasures were found nonetheless.

At our relatively early bedtimes Saturday night, blessings were counted, as usual, but for me, the blessing of which I was most keenly aware was nothing I had found at a store, it was this family, both individually and collectively.

They are my treasure.

SPC - August was a blur...

The challenge theme for August at Self Portrait Challenge was 'Blur.'

Here are my four (4) contributions:

(Click on each photo for a brief description, if you're interested.)

Photo Friday - 'First Light'

First day of school - 2013

Sixth Grade for Hannah
First Grade for Harrison

SPC - Internet Memes - #5

so there's a meme called "put shoe on head."

I do not know why.

I do not want to know why.

Polaroid Week 2013

A couple of weeks ago I participated in another Polaroid Week, or sometimes simply 'Roid Week.

This was my first experience with the newest PX680 Color Protection film from Impossible Project.

I like it. A lot.

Impossible project has made some serious leaps forward in their color film.

I'm just going to post my eight shots (and companion "Picture of a Polaroid" shots) here without additional text.

SPC - Internet Memes - #4

This is the most recent of the internet memes of which I have become aware.

Basically, the guy accidentally photobombed a Disney wedding proposal in front of Cinderella's castle. The groom-to-be was amused by it and uploaded it to (where else) the internet about a week ago (July 22, 2013).

The internet, true to form, loved it and now "in the way guy" is 'ruining' photographed moments old and new.

Full Story

I don't know if I noticed it because of a general heightened awareness of "memes" because of the SPC theme this month or if I noticed it because the 'in the way guy' reminds me of a guy I knew in college.

Regardless, I knew immediately that I would have to incorporate this guy into a self portrait this month.

When our family visited Holiday World in southern Indiana a few days ago, the installed "take your happy family photo here and unwittingly advertise our amusement park" location seemed a perfect spot to get a good photo to be upstaged thusly.

SPC - July - #1/2/3

Like the self portrait, itself, some ideas are timeless:

For the month of July, we're scrapping the timeless. I was interested in exploring something relatively new: The internet meme.
An Internet meme (pron. "meem") is an idea, style or action which spreads, often as mimicry, from person to person via the Internet, as with imitating the concept. [Source]


A few prompts I mentioned were:
Dos Equis Man - "I don't always...but when I do..."
Planking
Epic Fail
McKayla (Maroney) is not impressed
LOLcats
Nyan Cat
Despair/Demotivational Posters



On Friday of the July 4th holiday weekend, "Plan A" was a nearby water park, but the weather forecast didn't look promising, so "Plan B" ended up being the Star Wars Exhibit at the Indiana State Museum. We all enjoyed the exhibit and before we left to explore other parts of the museum, I asked a fellow guest to snap a photo of all of us in front of a case featuring full size models of C3PO, R2D2 and Princess Leia's costume on board the Tantive IV.



I think the concept of 'photobombing' qualifies as a meme.

I got this idea some time ago (possibly from here or here -- or possibly from Forrest Gump) and considered using 'photobombing historic photos' as a theme for an entire month of SPC.

Figured I'd use the idea here, for now, and see how it goes.

The original (public domain) photo is here.



Standing alone, the "caption this photo" functions as a meme on it's own and precedes the advent of the internet, I expect.