100 Days of Summer 2019
During every summer since 2013, I have undertaken the personal challenge of taking a photograph every day for 100 days, each day with a different predetermined theme. This means I’m constantly enhancing my skills, it keeps me thinking of fresh ideas and allows me to be creative with my photography. I have used the prompt word each day as a guide but my focus has been on capturing a good image each day. Some days this is easier than others as sometimes time is against me, but that’s good practice too.
The project was devised by Han (www.thethinks.com) and run on facebook, with hundreds of participants around the world. This year, she has handed the reins over to me so I will present my weekly favourites from the group here.
Here are my daily photos this year. I’ve included some background information on the images to give an insight into how I captured the photo and some have some technical information too. I’d love to know your thoughts, your favourites or your questions (you can tweet me @benstoneyphoto) and please visit my Facebook page to see the full galleries from previous years.
Day 1. Red
I took this photo just in time before the wine got finished off!
Day 2. Life
I took this photo during a bar-mitzvah celebration which was great fun to capture!
Day 3. Out of Place
Look closely to see what’s out of place!
Day 4. Simple
Eggs look so simple but they are amazing structures! I think this shell belonged to a starling. They nest in nearby houses.
Day 5. Past
I introduced the kids to my old micro-machines collection. They were very impressed!
Day 6. On The Other Side
Day 7. Alley
Day 8. Motion
Day 9. Wood
Day 10. Favourite
I love swifts, they are amazing creatures! Did you know, they spent most of their lives in flight and it has been worked out that in their lifetime, they can travel the equivilant of seven round trips to the moon!
Day 11. Yellow
This blue tit chick had fledged that morning and was hiding behind the shed. It’s parents were coming with food every few minutes!
Day 12. Circle
Day 13. Birds
Day 14. Lines
Day 15. Two
Day 16. Fail
Day 17. Abstract
This is a pink floor cleaner with yellow pop-poms on, next to a radiator. In case you wondered!
Day 18. Sweet
One of those moments that you just have to capture! She had found a small pool of sunlight in the kitchen to do her drawing.
Day 19. People
I took this photo though a car window while we were at traffic lights. The rain on the window gave the photo a really nice feel.
Day 20. Butterflies
It was a very rainy day, no chance of seeing actual butterflies. So I got some butter, moulded it into the shape of a man flying a parachute, put it in the fridge until hardened, then hung him in the garden. I photoshopped out the thin wire which was holding him up. I had contemplated seeing if he would actually fly, but then I realised we’ll need him for lunch!
Day 21. Blue
Day 22. Happy Place
Day 23. The Little Things
Day 24. Pet
This is Mr Sparkle. I photographed him using a Nikon speedlight creating a strong kicker light because I wanted all his fluffiness to show up. He was very obliging once I had given him some celery!
Day 25. Plastic
Day 26. Park
Day 27. Movement
I shot this with a slow shutter speed ( 1/5 sec) to show the movement of the wings, but added some flash to freeze the movement so you can make sense of what it is!
Day 29. Hobby
Not what I expected to see while walking along the river, but these guys were having a great time!
Day 28. Still
This statue outside the Royal Bath Hotel, Bournemouth, had some beautiful shadows being cast from a nearby flag. It was a case of waiting for the wind to catch the flag in just the right way to get light on the face and shadow behind.
Day 30. We
Day 31. Orange
I spotted this house sparrow poking his head out of the side of a… house!
Day 32. Neighbourly
Our neighbour gave us these flowers from her front garden as my daughter like them!
Day 33. Support
Day 34. Impression
Day 35. Three
Each of our children made one of these at pre school!
Day 36. Contours
A beautiful Triumph GT6 at a car show in Christchurch.
Day 37. Closed
Day 39. Run
Our hamster ‘Alice’ is always doing this when you’re trying to watch TV. I took the photo through the bars, but because I had the aperture wide open, they don’t show up on the photo.
Day 38. Beautiful
After a tour of Bournemouth Uni as part of my son’s after school club, I saw this large model of ‘Sully’ from ‘Monsters Inc.’ being stroked by my youngest daughter, I thought it was quite a beautful moment!
Day 40. Pun
Took my brain a while to swith to ‘pun mode’ but once it did, I couldn’t stop it! I actually took about three photos for this day but I think this was my favourite. “Post-houmous”
Day 42. Square
One of those pleasing moments when the kids are playing around and I realise how perfect it is for the day’s word!
Day 41. Black
I have a confession to make… this batman Lego figure is pink! I had the idea but couldn’t find a black batman! I had it all set up so I thought I’d go with it and convert to black and white! He’s black on the inside.
Day 43. Buffoon
An inflatable play area/bouncy castle on Bournemouth beach!
Day 44. Walk
I tried a few different angles for this one, but this was my favourite as it gave a small amout of detail in the background giving a sense of place and some nice lines which look like the man could be walking along!
Day 45. Why
I was taking some grass cuttings to the local dump, I noticed this ball. I always see things like this that I wish had found a new home instead of ending up in landfill. That’s why I like sites such as www.ilovefreegle.org (others are available too!) which enable people to give away unwanted items easily!
Day 46. Ready
My jelly was ready in the fridge. I thought I’d better photograh it for today’s word intead of devouring it straight away! I cleared that shelf to give space around the subject, then put my phone torch on and lay it under the jelly, just out of shot, to give a more dramatic feel with the shadows from the shelf bars creating more interest.
Day 47. Chiaroscuro
This walnut is called Victor. He was the prize when my friends and I would play games in our younger years! I photographed him on a black background with one light coming from the back right, bouncing off a white board on the left. I allowed a small amount of hard light to spill in the shadow area to give some texture and shape.
Day 48. Dazzling
Whenever I take this sort of photo, I look for the shadows on the ground – then I can easily work out where to stand to get the sun in the right place without having to look at the sun and hurting my eyes!
Day 49. Dream
I moulded a small blob of blue-tac to look like a resting person, then stuck it on the window. I used smallest aperture possible (f22) to get as much focus as possible to make the figure blend into the background.
Day 50. Is This All?
Don’t worry – this wasn’t all! I waited until all the friends, balloons, bouncy castles etc had gone to take this photo!
Day 51. Brown
This barrel was at Kingston Lacy – a lovely National Trust property in Dorset. There were several brown things I photographed that day but I think this was my favourite shot.
Day 52. Dramatic
I was actually watching an action movie on Tv while thinking about what to photograph for this word. It might’ve influenced my decision! It took a few takes to get this one right, I wanted some of the wall to still be intact so you could see what had happened so I built it with varying levels of strength. I used a speedlight flash positioned under the car to light up the falling bricks and another one positioned behing the car lighting the dust trail and bouncing in from the left to fill in the rest of the image. Any excuse to play with my son’s Lego!
Day 53. Minimal
I used a single flash bounced to give a nice soft light from the right. I had the light coming in from quite a low angle because I wanted to get the shadow of the duck in profile to give more interest. It took a while to persuade the duck to stay at the right angle though!
Day 54. Hide
I was playing hide and seek with my daughter and… I found her!
Day 56. White
I really like combining birds and lines in my photography, when I saw this gull approaching I got ready to capture it as it flew between the telephone lines.
Day 55. Paper
I like a bit of origami from time to time and so I made these swans with the kids for today’s photo
Day 57. Spot
AFC Bournemouth football club had a sticker album going this season and my son had managed to collect all but the last few. We got in touch and the matchday programme editor kindly sent the last ones to complete the collection! Here, the last ones are going into the right spot.
Day 58. Pause
I was driving through the New Forset and paused to say hello to this lovely horse.
Day 60. Spontaneous
We had a lovely unexpected picnic in the park after school
Day 59. You
Hello me!
Day 61. Stir
These clouds were gently stirring
Day 62. Star
I love it when the sun’s rays blast out from behing the clouds!
Day 63. Portrait
I was home alone and needed a willing volunteer for a portrait. Step up ‘Uncle Nay’, a large toy horse. He sat very still.
Day 64. Flashback
My daughter was eating soup in the garden and I remembered getting a photo for the word ‘circle’ back in 2015 over this table. it was full back then – we had my cousins round and there were seven of us squeezed around it!
Day 65. Four
We took our children to another lovely National Trust property – this time it’s Mottisfont in Wiltshire. My four year old daughter was exploring and found this old shephards hut with four steps.
Day 66. Round
The evening sunlight was sidelighting this lightshade beautifully showing it’s shape.
Day 67. Old
Have you noticed that it’s only the old coins that say ‘New Penny’? It’s obvious why, but it still amuses me!
Day 68. Bottle
There’s a lovely farm shop near Bournemouth called ‘Gulliver’s. They help provide meaningful activities and work opportunities for adults who have a learning disability or other support needs and also sell great local produce! Anyway, this bottle was in their toilets.
Day 69. Peculiar
I wasn’t expecting to find a life size teddy bear in the garden centre. I also wasn’t expcting it to cost over a grand!
Day 70. Forward
We went to watch AFC Bournemouth play SS Lazio in a friendly match. Here, Lazio forward Joaquin Correa charges forward, thankfully he was offside! It was a good match even though Bournemouth lost 4-3.
Day 71. Green
They say never work with animals or children, but I have done a few pet photoshoots now and they’re always good fun!
Day 72. Peace
The quiet cinema foyer on a weekday afternoon.
Day 73. Rubber
I liked the stripes of light and shadow under this line of parked cars
Day 74. Lost
This sign confused me!
Day 75. Found
There was a nice pool of light in this Surrey woodland so we made the most of it!
Day 76. Drink
This word had me stuck for a while. We had just gone camping and I hadn’t seen anything that would make a good photo for the day. Then we’d finished setting up the tents so my friends opened a few drinks. I realised that if I found the right angle, the low evening light would light the bottles nicely and make them stand out, and there was the shot!
Day 77. Noir
At the campsite there was a small fishing lake and on the lake was this black swan! I haven’t seen one for a long time. Even better, it swam out into the light, allowing me to frame the image in the shadow areas.
Day 78. Time-Honoured
This lovely old phone box in Corfe has been converted into a book swap centre! Brilliant!
Day 79. Speed
It was very windy while we were camping. Thankfully, we were in a campervan we’d borrowed from my parents – most of the tents got blown away! The bell tents stood firm though so if you’re planning to camp in high wind, I would reccommend one of these!
Day 80. Different
We spent some of the school holidays doing a ‘Rube Goldberg machine’ – one of those chain-reaction things. It was great fun to do something different with all the things around the house.
Day 81. Mustard
Day 82. Shadow
HAve you ever wondered what happens if you shine a light through a lens?
84. Stretching
83. Vast
Sunset at Milford-On-Sea. This was the perfect opportunity to try out the panoramic function on my Fuji XT1.
85. Make A Scene
We had a peaceful picnic in the New Forest. No-one was making a scene so I made one myself out of the surrounding acorns and twigs.
Day 86. Lazy
Day 87. Open
Day 88. Heirloom
These wooden blocks were made out of old furniture and have been played with by at least three generations of my family!
Dy 90. Camouflage
Day 89. Repurpose
Day 92. Parched
Day 91. My Favourite Colour
Day 93. Wheels
Taken in Solva, Pembrokeshire
Day 94. Slow
This clock tower was in the town of Marloes, Pembrokeshire near where we were staying on holiday. I decided to walk up and have a closer look and discovered it had swallows nesting inside. As I stepped back to take the photo, this rainbow appeared! It’s so nice to slow down and absorb moments like this.
Day 95. Five
Day 96. Bravery
Day 97. Success
I don’t know who placed that stone on top of that rock but it has successfully resisted the wind and waves. I was here for a while waiting for the waves to break in the right place. By the end, my lens was covered in sea spray!
Day 98. New
Day 99. This Would've Been Good For...
… Day 13- Bird, day 14- Lines, or day 95- Five. There’s something about the combination of birds and lines that I find pleasing. I think it’s something to do with the freedom of the birds with the direction of the lines together. In fact I have an instagram page dedicated to it! @birds_and_lines
Day 100. Finish
On the final day of this year’ project, I had a visit from my bestest buddy and discovered he had learnt to ride the unicycle in the short time since I last saw him! I thought that’s the perfect sentiment to finish on – it’s never too late to try something new!
I hope you’ve enjoyed my photos from this summer! Please get in touch (Facebook, Twitter @benstoneyphoto) and let me know your questions, favourites or anything else!