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Canon Image Challenge | all galleries >> CIC 268: Open Challenge II >> Eligible > 10 The Despair of Morning (2025)
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30-Mar-2025 TRAVELLER

10 The Despair of Morning (2025)

Canon EOS 6D Mark II
1/40s f/4.0 at 24.0mm iso1600 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Canon Image Challenge02-Apr-2025 18:33
We do have remarkably intelligent conversations here...I do appreciate all your thoughts. Best Wishes, Traveller
Canon Image Challenge02-Apr-2025 14:40
T - I am more of the "rock on" variety. I believe that it is the quality that is important, not the quantity. I try to live the best I can without excess, trust the genes to do their thing, and try to avoid being hit by a moving bus. Luck can also play a role.
As for an implant - I guess I'd ask who will monitor it and what will they do with the info.

Jim
Canon Image Challenge02-Apr-2025 13:53
I sleep with my Garmin Venue 3 smart watch on unless I have it on the charger. Currently that’s about every 5 days. When the power gets down to 10% it goes into a power saving mode and that’s when I look for the OEM charging cable (why not USBC) and occasionally that’s late in the day.

I know a person that recently got an heart monitor implant until they needed to step up and get a pacemaker. Implant was local anesthesia pacemaker was general. Both took some recovery time.

Hey if you’re getting ready to punch the clock then put me on the contact list, I wanna be there and I’ll have a penny or two. Maybe a nickel since we both were at the same US base. Better yet stop talking like that you’ll out survive us all and be dancing on our graves. Paul
Canon Image Challenge02-Apr-2025 08:19
I do severely understand the wearing a watch at night complaint...that is real and warranted.

Conversely, a watch is not any longer just a watch...it is a fully functioning medical device. Respiration 13.8/min, skin temp (surprisingly, my skin temp can vary by 8 degrees during the night); blood Oxygen last evening 22 seconds below 90%, and of course, my heart rate.

This is on my mind because I see my Cardiologist this afternoon...and he hates my watch, he insists that this and my blood pressure monitoring is not only useless...it is worse than useless. (he is serious).

He wants to implant a monitor that 24/7will monitor my heart, my activity, (my sex life, such as it is?), my everything...he is correct of course, but this seems, with a satellite overhead beaming my activity above and then to the hospital,...seems, seems, Orwellian to me.

On the other hand, just let me rock on (in life) is a viable plan also. Nothing is easy. Best Wishes, Traveller
Canon Image Challenge02-Apr-2025 03:01
Dave - I understand about the angry disturbed hornet in its nest. I was thinking more of the viewer of the photo, not necessarily the subject of the photo.

Jim
Canon Image Challenge02-Apr-2025 02:12
Traveller is an original. His moniker belongs to him and only him. I admit I do travel (take a look at my most recent addition to Exhibition), and being easily distracted means I sometimes notice things others miss (though I'm sure the opposite is often true).

I cannot sleep while wearing a watch, and I can't imagine sharing images of myself. T has much more courage. Jim, I have to disagree about emotionless creatures. Birds even inspired a popular video game (which I admit I've never played). And is there anything angrier than a disturbed wasp or hornet nest?

Dave
Canon Image Challenge01-Apr-2025 16:04
Mr T. Sorry about it, but in my mind we have been honest as to how we have seen it. Very few photos capture emotions. I am not saying that my wasp is not a very good photo. I think it is. A naturalist will like it a lot. But does it evoke an emotional response in the viewer - no. It is just a good looking wasp.
But your Despair photo, with the hand at the face over the eyes, and post processed in a way that lets the arising man be anyone of us, makes an emotional impact on the viewer.

You may not have consciously intended it this way - but that's what happend.

Jim
Canon Image Challenge01-Apr-2025 11:21
I see we’ve struck a nerve, almost fear in you and now it you’re deflecting. Nope you can’t spin this directing attention away from your quite unique and creative entry. The old saying “something’s you can’t unsee” applies here.

One thing you certainly have correct is Dave seems to be the new “Traveller”, he might need to borrow your moniker. Paul
Canon Image Challenge01-Apr-2025 06:49

I'm sorry Dave and Paul and Jim, your positions are incorrect.  Most people would not even be able to notice a wasp but then, even if they did, they would not  have the ability to create an excellent photograph bringing the insect to actual life, (and at what I considered to be a low shutter speed for a flying anything, at 1/640th of a second.)

Likewise, everyone admires Paul's work, so that's the end of that argument. Dave sees things that we don't see (and probably has been farther afield than any of us).  Alastair just presented us with a study in Picnic contrasts, or, was it a study in loneliness?

However, to my credit,  I would like to suggest that maybe there's a certain universality in the image. I mean that almost everyone at some time has woken up out of the depths of sleep into, if not despair, then at least confusion and anxiety. It was a good idea by me and executed reasonably well, and for that I deserve some street cred, but I can't hold a candle to many other people here. So there's that! Best Wishes, Traveller

PS Yes, there is a watch on my right wrist, recorded sleep score of  only Fair, 70, but my deep sleep was 12% and rem was 21%, so I don't know why the watch docked me so much....lol. Maybe because the sleep was only 5hrs and 26 minutes, but my heart rate and blood oxygen was good, so what the heck.
Canon Image Challenge31-Mar-2025 18:09
Paul - I am like you - doing something like this never crossed my mind. For that, I am in despair. So much so, that I considered to end this challenge, award the prize and trophy to Mr T, and move on. Back to my regular photos and snapshots. Birds & bees. Emotionless creatures.

I tried something new last night - an utter failure. After I wiped away my tear, I tossed them all.

Hmmmm,

Jim
Canon Image Challenge31-Mar-2025 13:56
Admit it, you just haven’t had your morning coffee yet and this scene is an everyday occurrence. So very intriguing and original thinking especially with the artistic treatment. Doing something like this would never have crossed my mind.

Maybe the secret conversations have something to do with the age old question “boxers or briefs!”. Paul
Canon Image Challenge31-Mar-2025 11:25
Nailed it again, Traveller. While I agree with not re-shooting. I am curious to see the room, which appears to have beautiful (I'm guessing original) wood floors and a lovely shade of blue on the walls. Do you sleep with a watch? Are you going to tell us omre about your secret conversations?

Dave
Canon Image Challenge31-Mar-2025 05:31
No, I won't re-shoot this...I was just thinking out loud, what I thought when I first saw the image, as though I was talking to you...lol...(I often have secret conversations with you!!!) Traveller
Canon Image Challenge31-Mar-2025 05:02
No - please don't reshoot this.

Jim
Canon Image Challenge31-Mar-2025 04:02
Thanks Jim, I see this as kind of my Van Gogh moment...some deeper honesty. I thought of re-shooting this, maybe with a red T shirt...but this, maybe unflattering, but honest...Waking up into, or from, a dreamy memory but back to reality. thanks again, Best Wishes, Traveller (of course, as a piece of Art, I hope people read vastly differing scenarios in this, as they and their background, what they individually bring to the image, dictates to them).
Canon Image Challenge31-Mar-2025 03:11
How can I not love this.
The title implies a story.
The Photo delivers.
The post processing is frosting on the cake.

What an original idea, and so well executed.

Jim