Thursday, February 19, 2009

resistance is futile

karekare beach

Something funny I've noticed when people are faced with the SoFoBoMo concept. They love it. Want to take part. It's something they've always wanted to do. 'Sign me up!' they cry. They've read the rules. They get the concept.

Then the bargaining begins. Oh, I've already got the pictures, can't I just use them? hmm, 35 pictures are a lot, I'm sure I can only do 25, that'll be okay? May to June you say? Well, I'm going to start in April. Will it still count if I don't finish it until July?

Even with such a simple set of constraints, it is interesting to see how much we mentally fight and rail against them. 35 pictures or more. Taken between May and June. That's it - there is almost no constraint at all, and yet. and yet.

What's going on here?

5 comments:

doonster said...

My take: most people are social creatures, want to feel they belong to something, so taking part comes naturally.
But on the other hand, most people don't want to challenge themselves, are fundamentally conservative, want to be safe. The constraints represent challenges hich, therefore, most want to avoid or dodge rather than push themselves a bit.

forkboy said...

At least I put forth my questions and concerns publicly...for the whole world to see.

Intimidated? Yes.

Interested? Yes.

Freaked out a bit? Yes.

(I'm the Mark Alfson guy...)

Dominic said...

I think doonster is on to something. Having said that, I think I don't have enough excuses this year to NOT do the project I envisioned two years ago, and am going to try to actually pull off what I wanted to do then.

('course, I wouldn't be surprised - I'm a lot of talk, and not always action to go with it. :)

Amy Sakurai said...

Last year a commenter – a non-photographer – posted that she initially didn’t see what was so hard about SoFoBoMo. She could take 35 pictures in a weekend. Anyone can. But when she saw the comparison to NaNoWriMo – she (a writer) realized what the roadblock – the challenge – was. For NaNoWriMo, writing 50,000 words is no big deal to a hack writer. Writing 50,000 good words is an entirely different matter.

So I think the only real hurdle in SoFoBoMo is our pride. At the end there will be a work of art on which we affix our name, as artist. And on the Internet that association will live forever. If we let go of our pride – or did the work anonymously – we could slap together a photo book without problem. Maybe even a pretty good book.

Ego is a big thing to get past. JMHO.

~Amy

Anonymous said...

Do I have to make my own photos, wont stock photos do equally well? ;-)

The pipe you set-up last year is fantastic, such a good way to get an overview of what's going on. Do you still add new feeds to it? If so, I would be so happy if you added mine: http://www.ovepove.se/feed. Thanks!