Monthly Theme - Plant Power (June 2021)

Before we jump into the new theme, we'd like to thank everyone who entered the “Long Exposure” theme in May!

We know this one is a little tricky and requires some gear and ideal opportunities to capture movement, but you still submitted some fab shots! Scroll down or jump to view this month's shortlist and vote for a winner!

Now it's time to introduce our June theme...."Plant Power".

We know how much our 365 community loves capturing and sharing photos of beautiful flowers and plants, plus for many of us, prime plant growing season has arrived! For our friends in the southern hemisphere, we hope you'll treat us to some autumnal treats and even the first signs of winter arriving.

There are so many ways to take brilliant photographs of plants. We only need to look as far as our news feed to find gorgeous new floral photographs! So, instead of sharing technical tips, we've brought back some fun ideas from previous floral themes:

1. Document Change

In the world of plants, a lot can happen in a month! We love seeing plant journals, created by photographing the same plants/flowers each day!

Maybe you’ll start with seedlings, like @kerodean, and watch them grow!

Perhaps you could document a bouquet of fresh flowers transition from tight buds, to bursting blooms and to wilting stalks.

Or, maybe you'll catch the transition of autumn leaves into winter branches, like @yorkshirekiwi.

2. 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. We love this bold, top-down shot from @novab!

Have fun and see how many perspectives you can come up with - last year @sunnygirl completed a whole month of beautiful, bright floral photos like the poppy capture below, and a whole month of blossom photos - amazing!

3. Run through the Alphabet

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

4. Make a Rainbow

Inspired by 365’s very own community-run "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 from March 2019:

5. Play with Plant-Based Food

Another exciting movement around the world is the development and growing popularity of eating plant-based food! So why not put an interesting twist on our 'botanical' theme and celebrate a plate of plants too?!

We love these cookbook-worthy photos by @darylo, and @adi314

Whether you decide to take on extra challenges or not, we hope you have a lot of floral fun this month. Whether it's in our garden or out on a daily walk, we can’t wait to see 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-plantpower (all one word).

Entry Guidelines: Photos must be your own and must have been taken and uploaded between Tuesday, June 1st and Wednesday, June 30th. 6 finalists will be chosen in the first couple of days in July, then you'll get to vote for the winner!

p.s. Don't worry if you spot some tagged photos from a previous theme, when choosing our six finalists we'll use a special algorithm to only filter the images from June 2021.

Vote for a Winner of May's "Long Exposure" Theme

As always, we loved reviewing your Long Exposure submissions! We appreciate it was a challenging technical theme but we still found it tricky to select just 6 finalists. So, now it's over to you to vote for the winner of the “Long Exposure” theme.

To cast your vote, simply reply to this blog post with the number (in digit form) of the photo you would like to see win, before June 14th. We’ll announce the winner in a separate post shortly after!