Monthly theme - Share your ideas!

[CNP Staff]

Dear CNPians,

It's been more than two years that we are having monthly themes and enjoying some amazing uploads. We have received few request if we can suggest the upcoming themes earlier. To help with that, we request all the members to suggest, if they have any monthly theme ideas or topic that we may come-up with, in future. In a way, it will also help us pre-visualize the coming themes n have some more ideas to work in the field. Kindly, suggest your monthly theme ideas in the comment below so that we can choose some interesting ones.

Expecting more of your contribution helping other members by few words of appreciation, suggestion or asking some question on their image/s. We thank you all, those who are already helping us with this and keeping our forum active n alive!

[Raviprakash S S]

Dear All,

My idea is to have White as the theme. The image need not be black and white but White should have significance OR White should make the subject look significant in the frame.

Below are images for reference














Looking forward to see more ideas from you all!

Regards,
Raviprakash S S

[Nevil Zaveri]

Mathematics In Nature :
Mathematics is visible everywhere in nature, even where we are not expecting it. It can help explain the way galaxies spiral, a seashell curves, patterns replicate, and rivers bend. Even subjective emotions, like what we find beautiful, can have mathematic explanations. Few examples are as under ..

[Prashanth Sampagar]

Dear CNPians,

My suggestion for monthly theme is "Elephants"

Probably one of the most loved subject for CNPians is "Elephants". As I dug in for Elephants in our forum I found a treasure of elephant images. Our members have created wonderful images of these gentle giants. Here are some of those creations.













































These are not just images, most of these images have wonderful discussions as well. Please go through them if possible.

And lastly, I'm sure there are plenty more elephant images to be made.

Best regards,
Prashanth

[Ganesh H Shankar]

Interesting suggestions. Let me add a few more.

This month's theme "White" seem to have resulted in some interesting perspectives. Similarly choosing other abstracts attributes of Nature which are harder to express in an image can be attempted? Can those be taken as interesting challenges? I am thinking of:

- Wind
- Flow (need not be water alone, may be wind flow too)
- Space/Infinity/Emptiness
- Smell - An image which reminds us that we have a nose
- Cycle of life
- Blue (similar to white)
- Dance
- Song
- Invisible!
- Mystery

Makes sense? Just some ideas. Not sure what images in the archive qualifies these themes but if any of these are interesting then some of them may be attempted in coming months? Just a few suggestions..

[Adithya Biloor]

Hi all,

My suggestion for monthly theme is Emotions

We earlier had elaborate and lengthy discussions about how we can depict human emotions through nature photography and the challenges associated with it. We have discussed how colors are associated with nav rasas ( nine rasas mentioned in ancient dance books) .

here

here

here - This is an attempt to showcase the human journey through a leaf.

here is an interesting forum discussion

here and here are two examples of depicting human emotions in a nature photograph.

Thanks,
Adithya

[Nevil Zaveri]

Dear everyone,

One more monthly theme idea I found interesting - MY FAILED SHOT ie a shot that you were likely to delete, but somehow remained! .. it could have been taken by wrong setting or some mistake!

You may add a note saying 'Why/what you find interesting, now?!'

Warm regards.

[Vikas T R]

Hello Everyone,

The theme that i would like to suggest is "Illusion". The image or the title makes you to see the image in multiple dimensions or what you are seeing is not what is intended to show in the image or any other visual illusion.

Here are some sample images :










I would encourage all of you to share your themes and the moderators will start posting these themes starting October.

Thanks
Vikas

[Rajkumar]

Hi,

All good ideas. I would like to suggest a few which is more process-oriented than subject-oriented. A bit tangential and more involved but I think this is also an important way of image making


- A visual that best stands for 'who you are " . Not about what subject you like but more like a "self-portrait" except you are not in the picture
- A visual that relives a childhood memory
- A visual of that shows how you feel when missing somebody/something very badly

Agreed these are hard things to do (that too in a month) but well worth attempting and failing

Others can add a few more ideas

[Vageesha AR]

Many interesting themes are already shared here ( that I would have mentioned too ). I would like to add the below ones.

Images representing timelessness in nature.

Images capturing the infinite scale of nature.

Images invoking nostalgia ( reminiscence and longing etc )

Images about experiencing a sense of loss.

Images of life trying to adjust to a new place/environment.

Images about parentship and guardianship in nature.

Images representing ' Mother Nature ' or Gaia as Greeks called it.

Images that portray human disconnect with nature and the consequence thereof.

Images of nature losing to human greed and Images of nature fighting against humans to survive.

Images of nature's abundance.

Images that capture change / constant components of nature.

Images about ecological grief.

[Adithya Biloor]

Dear Vageesha,

Good to see you posting after a long time.
We were missing your comments and images .

Adithya

[Nevil Zaveri]

Dear Members,

Few upcoming themes are ..
Who am I !? (without including oneself in the frame) _ by Rajkumar
Human Emotions (conveyed by nature element/s) _ by Adithya Biloor
My Failed Shot! (Photo that we could have deleted, but revived by apt crop / post-processing / thought process) _ by Nevil Zaveri

Members, kindly suggest more ideas in the comment below.

Thank you.

[Sarthak Agrawal]

Hi everyone,
I have a few suggestions for Monthly themes,

"Gold" It can be something of the color gold, or an image made in golden hour or an image which is precious to one.
"Light Painting" This is pretty much self explanatory.
We can also choose themes relating to time of the day like dawn, noon, nightfall or moonrise etc.

I request other members to suggest a theme or few as we might run out of ideas soon. Thanks in advance.

[Nevil Zaveri]

Dear Friends,

We are running short of monthly theme ideas. We request all of you to suggest few ideas in the comment below.
Thank you in advance

Warm regards,
CNP Team

[Sarthak Agrawal]

Hi,

I was thinking maybe we could have movie genres as monthly themes? These are a few genres I could relate with nature photography:

Mystery
Fantasy
Romance
Drama
Action

I found it difficult to connect with Comedy, Horror and Thriller but we can give them a try too.

Regards

[Nevil Zaveri]

Few more simple monthly theme ideas are .. Puddles, Sand, floral etc.
Kindly suggest more.

Warm regards.

[Ganesh H Shankar]

I don't remember having "Rain" as a theme. Did we?

[Prashanth Sampagar]

@Ganesh,

I don't think so, we had series made by individuals on rain. Probably perfect for the season.

Here are few themes I could think of

Contours
The darkness
Simplism
Mountains


Best regards,
Prashanth

[Ashwini Kumar Bhat]

Maybe a niche one but I was thinking up on the theme of -

"Aham Brahmasmi" - "I am the creator"

Feel free to ignore!

[Nevil Zaveri]

That's very interesting, Ashwini.
To understand fully, can you give few examples from CNP uploads (listing their BBCodes) for reference?
10 examples will help me make the announcement poster too

Warm regards,
Nevil

[Adithya Biloor]

That's very interesting, Ashwini. Can you please share some images that can be shown as examples posted here on CNP?
It's a very complex theme and I guess it needs a lot of explanation and examples.

Thanks,
Adithya

[Aniket R Thopate]

I have one idea about monthly theme , ' Darks within a dark' . I think many of us would relate it with lowkey images but here I am referring to the tonal contrasts in darkness and not any highlights to lead. Currently I dont have any such kind of image to give reference.
Thanks

[Anders Wahlund]

Aniket's Idea is interesting. Could be little difficult depending on how good your computer screen is and how good calibrated it is. I would love to see how you interpret the light.

Another theme could be "Tastless" - as often the nature is. Without any romantic morning light and without sweet deer eyes. Those type of images which are no mistakes, but the motiv/story is "too much" for the audience to take in.

[Ganesh H Shankar]

I like Anders' suggestion "Tasteless"! I think this might force us to think beyond visual cues in an image. I do believe most of the beauty in the Nature is not visual at all.

Another suggestion I have for monthly theme is "silence". We may also think of other attributes not sensed/inferred directly by eyes!

Probably "Warmth", "Fragrance", "Longing", "Nostalgic", "Fear", "Forgive", "Joy",...

Some of these may be tough to execute. May be easy for some too. I am pleasantly surprised to see images in the "Puddle" series..

In any case such themes may help us think beyond the obvious. However, I may not readily have images that fit these themes.

[Nevil Zaveri]

Thank you everyone who suggested some very interesting monthly themes.

We will be glad to have few related CNP sample images embedded, alongwith the theme suggestion. This may help others have some deeper insight on the theme n may also give a clue on 'what is expected?'. Certainly, it will also help us make the monthly theme poster

Thank you once again.
Warm regards.

[Nevil Zaveri]

Dear Friends,

When a monthly theme idea is posted on your behalf, it will be interesting to know your thoughts/opinion on each image posted

Warm regards.