My Little Gold Photo Dash
Okay, so I had this idea the other day. Just popped into my head. I looked at the clock, had about an hour free before I needed to do something else, and thought, why not try a quick photo challenge? Like those old 1-hour photo places, but, you know, doing it all myself from shooting to seeing the results. And I needed a theme. Gold. Seemed easy enough, or maybe tricky. Let’s see.
First thing, I grabbed my camera. Didn’t spend ages picking gear, just the usual body and a lens I like. Didn’t want to waste time messing with settings too much either. Auto ISO, aperture priority, good enough. The main thing was the one-hour time limit. Started the timer on my phone and headed out the door.
Luckily, it was late afternoon, heading towards that ‘golden hour’ thing. So, free gold light, right? I started walking around my block, basically just looking for anything that looked gold or warm-toned, especially things catching that low sun. Saw some yellow flowers, they kinda counted. Found a bit of old metal, rusty but glowing gold in the light. Even just the way the sunlight hit a brick wall looked pretty golden. I was snapping away, trying not to overthink it because, you know, the clock was ticking.
Honestly, felt a bit frantic. An hour isn’t that long when you’re hunting for specific shots. Took a bunch of photos, probably loads of rubbish ones. Tried different angles. Focused on textures that looked rich or warm. Saw a car with some gold trim, snapped that. The light started fading fast towards the end, which added to the pressure.
Then the phone timer went off. Pencils down! Back inside. Popped the memory card into the computer straight away. Didn’t even make a coffee first. Wanted to see what I actually got within that hour window.
So, I opened up the folder. Clicked through them quickly. Yeah, lots of blurry ones, bad angles, stuff that just didn’t work. Deleted those immediately. Found maybe five or six that looked okay, had that warm, golden feel I was aiming for. Did a super quick adjustment on two of them – just bumped the warmth slider a tiny bit to really push the gold vibe. Didn’t spend more than five minutes on that, wanted to stay true to the ‘1 hr’ spirit.
End result? I wouldn’t say they’re award-winning photos. But I got a few decent shots that fit the ‘gold’ theme, and the whole process from picking up the camera to having viewable images took just about one hour. It was a fun little exercise. Good way to force myself to shoot quickly and not overthink. Might try it again with a different theme when I’ve got a spare hour.
