Weekly Photo Challenge: Something that Doesn’t Belong

I’ve been setting these challenges for a while – first official one was to Photograph Discarded Shoes. Since then, we’ve photographed:

**Whew!** We have been busy this last year! If you see an enticing challenge that you missed, feel free to post. There’s not really a sell-by date on these weekly challenges.

I try to balance technical challenges with more conceptual ones. Every so often I try to throw in a curve ball where I really try to tap into your creativity.

I also don’t want to make it easy to search through your keywords to find a photo from your past catalogue to submit. Of course you can submit previously taken photos, but I want to at least send you through your back catalogue to look at your images with a different eye.

I’m always looking to shake things up a bit and encourage you to explore your world in a new way through your photographs.

This week is one of those odd-ball challenges:

Photograph Something that Doesn’t Belong

One of these signs doesn’t belong. Which is the question.

I think I’m tapping back into my childhood and remembering a bit from the children’s show Sesame Street where they show a series of objects and challenges the children to find the thing that doesn’t belong. I can even hear the song in my head “One of this things doesn’t belong…”

Do they still do that?

I had to think very creatively to come up with my standard examples to include in this post – I hope this means that you have a challenge this week as well.

Don’t give up! This is supposed to be a fun challenge and meaningful to your life!

My first idea was to find a series of objects and show repetition and contrast. Color, shape, height, that sort of thing, can make something stand out and make it seem not like the others.

Columbia Bottom Sunflowers. One of these sunflowers is definitely an over-achiever.

Something that doesn’t belong doesn’t have to be negative. Being unique can be beautiful and interesting. There was an Android advertisement a while back that celebrated diversity using a musical metaphor.

Feel free to play around in post processing to make this diversity happen. A selective color can be added later post for example. Though it’s much more fun if you find a real life example.

Selective color makes one of these umbrellas unique.

Something that doesn’t belong is something out of place. We recently had an example of that in St. Louis when a Mandarin Duck stopped by to visit his local duck cousins. This very colorful bird definitely didn’t belong, but he was a colorful addition to this local pond and the other ducks didn’t seem to mind.

Mandarin duck comes to visit in St. Louis. Not his usual stomping grounds.

*I have new cards from Moo – Love the square cards! They get so much attention when I hand them out.*
25% off your first order from Moo

You could also play with juxtaposition this week. Occasionally life throws up an odd, sometimes quite funny, pairing. Some people are great at seeing humor in street photography – if that’s you, let’s see something that doesn’t belong! I’m not sure if it’s the smile or the frown that doesn’t belong – probably turn the frown upside down!

Or show something unexpected – something that doesn’t really belong in the same scene. Like winter snow and spring blooms.

Winter snow and spring blooms unusual in the same scene. One doesn’t belong (I vote to get rid of the snow!)

Or a lightbulb in a pool of water.

Lightbulbs and water don’t belong together.

This week’s challenge is all about finding that one thing that stands apart from the rest. Something that doesn’t belong. Break out that creativity and see what you’ve got!

For more photos, follow me on social media: Facebook,Instagram, Website, Flickr