Monthly Theme - Flora (May 2019)

Is it just us, or does this year seems to be accelerating faster each month? Once again, we’d like to thank you all for taking part in April’s “Get Close” theme. We’re bursting with pride looking through so many amazing photographs - we sure do have a talented community!

As always, you can view the six finalists and vote for a winner below, but first we want to introduce May’s theme - "Flora".

We know how much you guys love sharing photos of flowers, and for many of us Spring is in full bloom - so what better way to celebrate than dedicating this month’s theme to flora!

There are so many brilliant ways to take beautiful photos of flowers, in fact, every day we’re treated to new floral photographs right here on 365! Teamed with tips from previous themes and the endless inspiration in our 365 feed, instead of sharing tips and guides we thought it might be fun to offer some extra challenges to consider within this month’s floral theme:

1. Make a Rainbow

Inspired by 365’s very own community "Rainbow Challenge", this will make for a stunning monthly snapshot in your project!

Simply set a colour for each day of the week and focus on taking a plant based photo to fit your rainbow each day. (e.g. Monday = Red, Tuesday = Orange, Wednesday = Yellow, Thursday = Green, Friday = Blue, Saturday = Purple and Sunday = Pink).

We love this example from @sheilaw's project:

2. Run through the Alphabet

This one is for the greenfingered folk that know their Azaleas from their Alstroemeria (below, by @quietpurplehaze) and their Zinnias from their Zenobias. Simply challenge yourself to tick off as many letters in the floral alphabet throughout May!

3. Document Change

In the world of plants, a lot can happen in a month! We think it’d be pretty cool to document a plant journal by photographing the same plant/flower each day! Maybe you’ll start with a seedling (like @rosiekerr below) and watch it grow, or watch a bouquet of fresh flowers transition from tight buds, to bursting blooms and to wilting stalks.

4. Play with Perspective

Like the great masters of painting, you can use flowers as a subject to develop your photography skills and techniques by using one subject over and over again. Perhaps each week you could use a different flower/bouquet to practice a variety of shots, from macro to wide angle, and from black and white to low-key. Have fun and see how many perspectives you can come up with - we love this creative shot from @sjoblues!

Whether you decide to take on the extra challenges or not, we hope you have a lot of fun this month. We can’t wait to check out your entries!

How to enter this month’s theme

When uploading your photos use the tag section (on the edit/organise screen) and insert this week's theme tag: theme-flora.

Entry Guidelines: Photos must be your own and must have been taken and uploaded between Wednesday May 1st and Friday May 31st. 6 finalists will be chosen in the first couple days of June, then you get to vote for the winner in the following month!

Vote for a Winner of April's "Get Close" Theme

We never get bored of seeing lots of beautiful macro and zoom shots - and appreciate how tricky they can be to master! As we mentioned above, we feel so lucky to have so many talented 365ers and this month's Get Close theme blew us away!

We finally managed to decide on just six finalists, so now it's over to you guys! To cast your vote, just reply to this blog post with the number (in digit form) of the photo you would like to see win, before May 14th. We’ll announce the winner in a separate post shortly after!