I have a bit of a thing for notebooks and have several on my desk at all times – a variety of spiral bound, sewn, glued, stapled, small, large, soft-covered, hard-covered, lined and unlined notebooks – where I jot down ideas, make lists, take notes on things I read or find interesting and do my best to keep organized. I even read a book in June where a notebook was a key part of the story line. But I didn’t photograph any of my current set of notebooks for this post. Read on to learn why…

Until 4 pm local time on publication day, I thought this month’s theme was black and white! How did that happen? I have no idea. If I had the right theme in mind from the start, this post would most definitely include photographs of notebooks in a range of sizes and with a variety of covers. But since I got the theme wrong for 98.9% of the month, it’s a good thing it was fairly easy to identify a notebook tie-in for the photos I took for the wrong theme. About 30 minutes of editing later, and here we go…

1. Cloth Masks

This will be the third month in a row I’ve found a way to incorporate my cloth mask sewing project into the photo blogging challenge. According to my project notebook, I’ve now sewn 71 masks that I’ve given away to 26 people. I have another another 30+ cut out and ready to sew. Most of those will go to a local homeless shelter. Since I started this project back in April, I’ve gone through 10 meters of cloth and 7 spools of thread. In June, Mr GeoK sourced a 500 foot spool of shock cord, which makes the masks much easier to put on/take off than fussing with ties. The pipe cleaners are the nose wires and there a couple of cut-out linings in this photo, as well. The music printed fabric is part of the order I just received from Canmore’s quilt shop, The Sugar Pine Company, and will become the fronts of approx. 8 masks later this summer.

2. Planner/calendar

My principle notebook is a yearly printed planner, the kind with a two-page spread for each week. It’s got a bunch of blank note pages and bullet-journal style pages at the back. At the beginning of the year, I designated a couple of blank note pages for brainstorming ideas for the photo blogging challenge each month. This month I really wanted to include a Lego photo and since my perpetual Lego desk calendar is an essential companion to my yearly planner, I selected one of the calendar Lego bricks for this image. It’s rare that words are printed on Lego bricks, as most printed pieces are clothing and faces of Lego minifigs. Anyhow, I made a pattern of black and white bricks for this one.

3. Light Painting

What do you get when you hang a flashlight from a string, position your camera directly underneath, turn out the lights, set a long exposure and put the flashlight in motion? One possibility is a smashed camera! But with careful attention to safety details, patience and creativity, you can produce a light spirograph. Again, this is a photography project idea from a note page in my planner, so that I am never stuck for ideas on a rainy day.

This was my first attempt at something like this and next time I will try to figure out a way to narrow the light beam from my flashlight. I’d also like to figure out a way to attach a coloured gel to the front of the flashlight, to get some colour going.

4. Road Ride

I keep track of all our hikes and rides on another page in my planner. So far this year, we’ve done eight rides totaling 418 km (260 miles). Riding the Highwood Pass each spring before the road opens to vehicle traffic has become somewhat of a tradition for us. The Highwood Pass is the highest paved road in Canada and this year there was still a fair bit of snow at the summit. I wrote more about this ride here.

5. Abstract

At the start of the month, I went through my 2019 and 2020 pages of notes re: the photo blogging challenge and noticed that I have not been following through on my intention to include an abstract photo each month. I’ve used sheets of cardstock to create abstract images a couple of times in the past. This time I used 5 sheets of white card stock and 2 paperclips (not in the frame) to make a paper shape. I took a few shots with a sheet of white card stock for the background and a few more with a sheet of black card stock for the background. This is my favourite of the lot – a last minute substitution for one that included black and white when I thought that was the theme! (I tucked that one in behind the slideshow function if you’re curious).

That’s it from me. To see how notebooks factor into the lives of other challenge participants, check out the link-up at the bottom of PBC host PJ’s post.

While you’re there, please consider joining this photo blogging challenge. It’s basically a low-stress photo assignment – an excuse to hone photography skills. For each month’s theme, share five photos taken with any camera. The amount of accompanying text is up to you. The next theme will be posted at a ‘lil Hoohaa in early July.