I’m excited to discover all the different ways Photo Blogging Challenge participants went with this month’s theme: One Hour. Some possibilities I considered include:

• Some kind of baking – yes, it takes just an hour to get bread into the oven if I mix, knead and rise the dough in my trusty Zojirushi bread machine
• Homemade pizza – the dough rises one hour before preparing the rounds for slow rise
• My evening routine – I take about an hour after supper/before watching TV to journal, plan the next day, do a Duolingo Portuguese lesson (or two), read a bit, and meditate if it’s been a stressful day
• Exercise – 50 minutes of exercise followed by 10 minutes of stretching my favourite kind of workout. I like to mix it up between interval training, strength training, riding the recumbent stationary bike or hopping on the ARC trainer.
• One hour live composite long exposure – our 22 y.o. suggest this one, but I just didn’t make it happen. Maybe in June. 🙂

I turned just two of my initial ideas into reality. The rest of my five photos for this month just kind of happened as the days passed. And since I had the “One Hour” theme in mind, I figured out a way to make them fit.

1. Spotted on the One Hour Drive Between Canmore and Calgary

Something photographed during our regular one hour drive between Canmore and Calgary is one of the ideas I had at the start of the month. Mr. GeoK pretty much always drives, so I hold my camera in my lap and sometimes have the good fortune of photographing an amazing sunrise, wildlife, a ribbon of headlights headed to the mountains or something else that pique’s my interest. This month it was an almost perfect sun halo. Had we been just a few minutes later departing Canmore, it would have been a perfect circle.

2. (Approximately) One Hour Lego Build

Speaking of driving, Mr. GeoK is pretty impressed with the 1:8 scale line of supercars that Lego’s producing. He reports they take about an hour to build, partly because of the time it takes to line up the stickers just right before pressing them on. And partly because there are interesting parts and building techniques to admire. Our 22 y.o., on the other hand, reported a 20-minute build time for another car in the series. Minifig Me volunteered to photograph Mr. GeoK’s Lamborghini Countach (set 76908).

3. Family Hour

While they may not fly down the highway at a speed well above the limit, this great horned owlet has learned to fly. We’ve visited the great horned owl family in a nearby Calgary park several times this spring. When they weren’t anywhere near their nest on our last visit, we figure that was it! But a kindhearted walker let me know where he’d heard at least one hooting away, and we got lucky! We spotted 4 of the 5 members of the great horned owl family and we hung out with them for about an hour before moving along. For more photos, check out Mr GeoK’s Relive video recap of our walk in the park.

4. Nearby Nature Hour

I particularly love being outdoors this time of year. The naturescape changes daily, and there aren’t yet any mosquitos bzzzing about trying to sting me! One sunny afternoon late in the month, I gave myself an hour “off” from my “to do” list and headed out into our yard, camera in hand, to see what I could come up with. I like the dreamy look of this photo of the ephemeral blossoms on our crab apple tree. It’s all thanks to my Lensbaby Sol 22 manual, selective, tilt-focus lens.

5. One Hour Abstract Challenge

And on a gloomy day, I gave myself an hour inside to create a colourful paper abstract. I set the cardstock teardrops up in my whitebox and played around with the exposure triangle until I got a long enough shutterspeed to do a tiny zoom burst. I’m really happy with the bright and cheerful colours and the sense of depth.

That’s it from me this month. I’m interested to know if you have a favourite way to spend one hour. If so, please share by leaving a comment. And to see what everyone else did with One Hour, hop on over to A ‘Lil Hoohaa and look for the link-up at the bottom of the post.

While you’re there, please consider joining the Photo Blogging Challenge in June. The theme is Water. You need five photos. How much you write is up to you.