Thanks in large part to a mention by +Trey Ratcliff, (Mr. 50,000+ followers himself), I had another influx to the competition this morning. We’re up to 488 downloads of the original photo, around 200 requests to submit and 172 variations uploaded so far. It’s gotten intense.

“I wanna play, but I’m no good in Photoshop/Aperture/plug-ins” (or) “I wanna play, but I don’t have any of this software so can’t be creative”

I’ve seen a few statements like the above, and I commented back to one user that limiting the tools you have at your disposal can in fact foster and encourage creativity. Having too many choices can be hard. Limit your choices, and that’s when real creativity kicks in. Like in the kitchen… “how do I make an interesting meal with one potato and some dried herbs?”.

So for today’s personal submission, I decided to eschew the thousands of dollars in software I have at my disposal and instead see what I could just on the iPad. OK obviously not everyone has an iPad, but that’s not the point. I spent $9 on the software I used to make the following image, and I did everything on the iPad in a matter of minutes.

My version for Day 3, treated only on the iPad. Click to view in the Picasa galleryIn honor of Trey’s encouragement, I first used his own iPad app, 100 Cameras in 1 ($3.99). I used the “add effect” feature to keep piling on texture after texture until I got it where I wanted it to be. Then, I took the photo into Snapspeed by Nik Software ($4.99), where I added a border, defocused part of the scene, and added another border. I may have played with the colors a bit, too.

So, for a grand total of $8.98 in software, I was able to make (what I think is) a pretty interesting version.

Tomorrow, I’ll take a totally different approach to it. Stay tuned!

Morality

A conversation has sparked elsewhere on Google+ suggesting that what I’m doing here (allowing this photograph to be manipulated without oversight) perhaps isn’t ethical or moral, or if the blame isn’t with me, then maybe some users are to blame for being somewhat cavalier with the treatment of the images. I won’t publicly post the link to this discussion unless the host of it asks me to (I was only invited after speculation flew rampant about our, or my, intentions), but I will say a couple of things to hopefully easy the minds of anyone else who’s sentiments are going that way.

I own this photo, I made this photo, and the subject gave me permission to make this photo. I was being escorted by the local aid organization and had full permission to be there, and only photographed what I was given the OK to (or asked to) photograph.
I haven’t transferred copyright to this image, but have granted creative commons (cc) for non-commercial use—so no one can run off and use this in an ad campaign with my, or the subject’s, permission.
Within 24 hours of realizing the potential impact of this contest, I reached out to my contacts in Thailand to see if we can turn this into a fundraiser or awareness campaign for their hospital/hospice. No promises, of course, but I’m doing what I can. If there’s any direct financial gain to be had form this contest (which was never my intention, but if there is), then the funds will have a place to go.
I’m not selling anyone else’s work here, and while some have suggested a book or ebook out of the results, if it goes that far, then see point #3.

You Have Until Friday

The contest continues until this Friday, Aug 05. So there’s still time to get involved! Head to the original post for all the instructions.