Micro.blog - the blogging tool for this site - contains a wonderful range of people who every year or so are given daily prompts from within the community to post photos.
Last October’s photoblog challenge I submitted prompt words which straddled natural & tech interpretations and reviewed how the community leans techie: Connection & Touch.
This time I wanted to find out how creative the M.b community with very specific (sometimes mundane) prompts. In particular, I wanted to compare their creativity to my own family’s.
The King’s Gallery (11 entries)
I’d hosted a very similar challenge as part of my weekly King’s Speech livestreams with my brother. We called it the King’s Gallery, and as you can see, my step-dad invented very specific prompts:
So I suggested to Jean that she could use any of the May prompts. Fittingly for the 10th May 2022, she opted for ‘Pot’ the King’s Gallery prompt for the same date in 2020!
Let’s look back at how the Warner clan fared:
Here was what Ben & I said on the livestream at the time.
As you’ll see, King Ben gave himself the crown that day for his ingenious pun on Harry Potter! Also punning was the Pol Pot one. There were also three more straightforward interpretations: 1. flower-pot, 2. other household-pot & 3. weed.
M.b Photoblog (44 entries)
I’ve screenshotted & categorised the entries in this Dropbox folder.
Here’s a snapshot:
Here were my faves for each category (number of entrants) I wanna give some love to:
Flower Pot (24)
@ericmwalk for getting the fam stuck in too:
Hon Mentions:
@alpine for making the whole a flower a pot:
@ronguest & @Whalley_Ranger for not just reusing their ‘Bloom’ (the previous prompt!) flower photos:
@tuckerk for @-mentioning the prompter successfully :D (Manton may need to look at some where @warner just stayed plain-text)
King’s Gallery:
I took this mundane meaning and punned on it, in the style of my cousin’s previous Da Vinci tableau:
Household Pot (11)
@mandaris not afraid to have a laugh:
Hon mentions:
@BestofTimes even has a teapot in his avatar:
@parag cooking paavbhaji is one of the best things you can do with a cooking pot:
King’s Gallery:
my brudda shows he’s got a steady hand:
Weed (3)
@Jean herself for this, unsurprisingly being from one of the first states to legalise:
King’s Gallery:
My cousin Fred is an amazing drawer, and I’m always amazed at his stuff:
I wonder how Lewis Carroll would feel that the UK is still not willing to legalise&tax 1.5 centuries later, even during a budgetary crisis.
Other (6)
A range of pot-based puns.
@val makes a timely observation, highlighting a social problem in the Slavic world:
King’s Gallery:
I’m still not sure what my uncle’s connection was with this, but I think the Covid lockdown was taking it’s toll 2 months in!
Conclusion
The King’s Gallery were more evenly spread over the categories, whereas the photos heavily weighted to the mundane: what’s easily photographable in the house & garden.
So though I’d love to conclude my family is much more creative, I’m more inclined to say that the more realistic medium constrained M.b users.
I know the realism of these photos is what sets M.b apart from the more digital art (NFTs & memes) heavy Twitter, so I’m happy for it to stay this way! Roll on the next Photoblog challenge!
Enjoyed this?
There’s still a couple weeks left in this M.b photo challenge. Consider joining and taking part!
Micro.Camp videos give a good intro to the community, and my 2021 talk gives tips on the best socials-friendly setup.
