2021 WEEK 7: Bad Habit

This week we want to depict a bad habit. We are looking at our photography project here from a different angle: Many photographers are eager to show beautiful and positive photos. We are now going for actions that are considered negatively by the public. However we want to show the bad habit at least in an interesting way.

You can approach this theme in any way you want: from portrait to still life. It can be your bad habit, your spouse’s, your pet’s or that of a total stranger. You can include the person or just show the utensils necessary or even the outcome. While you can always choose the easy way and document your ‚misdeeds‘ I want to encourage you to do so in an interesting way: use a wide angle lens (as your mobile phone most likely does), select an uncommon perspective or angle, use leading lines and the general rules of composition. Yet the most important rule to follow for your final entry is: The bad habit has to be clearly recognisable within your photo and doesn’t need further explanation.

We are doing a quiz!

I suggest that you post your photo without explanation. Of course you can mention the location, your process or the camera settings. Then you let the others guess what habit you want to show. Later on you can add a comment to clarify matters. This is a fun way to see how successful your visual storytelling was.

Wikipedia defines:

“A bad habit is a negative behaviour pattern. Common examples include: procrastination, overspending and nail-biting.”
Personally I found it very interesting to read further about will and intention in the wikipedia article:
“A key factor in distinguishing a bad habit from an addiction or mental disease is the element of willpower. If a person still seems to have control over the behaviour then it is just a habit. Good intentions are able to override the negative effect of bad habits but their effect seems to be independent and additive — the bad habits remain but are subdued rather than canceled.”

Examples and ideas:

On one hand I had a hard time finding example photos. Obviously the internet is focused on beauty and positive examples. On the other hand I think this leaves us plenty of room for creative interpretations of the theme.

Happy feet are dirty feet by Ulrike Lukasczyk

Check out this mood board on Pinterest:

Challenge summary:

Select a bad habit you want to capture. The bad habit has to be clearly recognisable within your photo and doesn’t need further explanation.
Carefully think about perspective, exposure and general composition and experiment with these parameters while you are taking your photo.
SOOC (straight out of camera) or edited post your photo during the week of Sunday, February 13 and Saturday, February 20.
Please remember to comment on at least FIVE photo submissions this week by answering the question “why?” in your comments. In other words, “why do I like (or not like) this photo?” or “why did this photo catch my eye?” Thank you!

The friendly community guidelines are pretty simple:

Take a new photo for the current weekly theme, not something from your back catalog or someone else’s image.
Post your photo each week to our active communities on Facebook or Flickr (or both). Tag the photo: #2021photochallenge #photochallenge #tempusaura
Don’t leave home without your camera. Participating in the 2021 Trevor Carpenter Photo Challenge is fun and easy.