OCOLOY 2025: August
25 September 2025
August was perhaps the most experimental month of the challenge, yet. In the first half of the month, I was in Slovenia and in the second half, I had some chores that built up during the vacation and others for preparing the three weeks I was away this month. Being away from home for five weeks in two months is more stressful than I'd imagined. During the two weeks I was at home at the end of August, I didn't even mentally arrive there. I have no idea how some can manage travelling full-time. However, that doesn't mean I enjoyed both vacations. Quite the contrary! And once I have the time to go through all the images, I'm sure there will be a few blog posts.
Thus, time for street photography was quite sparse during August. So I decided more or less in the last minute to pursue another side challenge than originally intended. What I had planned is more interesting and educational for me to just do it on 3-4 walks. The side challenge I've then chosen was "Shoot from the hip". I extended my camera neck strap to place the Ricoh GR IIIx as low as possible, and if I saw something interesting, I just turned it on (if it wasn't already) and pressed the shutter. I left the shooting display off and only occasionally even looked at the pictures afterwards. As a result, in most photos, the rotation is quite off. I decided not to correct that, but keep them crooked to preserve the idea of the challenge. However, I cropped some.
For me, as an introvert, the challenge was quite beneficial, especially in the city, where it gave me more confidence to capture scenes more close up than I would have otherwise. For this alone, I will certainly continue to shoot from the hip from time to time to boost my confidence in urban areas with many people. However, for more calm shots without any people, I surely prefer the ability to precisely compose the photo.
