A Fresh Wonders Contest: Telling a Story With Images

Fresh Wonders is a Ning Community run by Michelle Willow.

It was set up to support new Squids improve the quality of their lenses and their experience on Squidoo.

On the Fresh Wonders Ning site you will find new Squids and old working together to help each other. Part of the learning experience includes a weekly contest, like this one.

You can find out more about the Fresh Wonders community in the lens below.

Logo designed by a_willow.

When?
This Contest will run for one week- Monday November 16th to Sunday November 22nd 2009.

What Do I Get?

The Contest Winner will receive:

an exclusive Badge, Spotlight Interview and a write-up about you on The Fresh Squid Blog.

Who Can Enter?

Any member of the Ning Community Fresh Wonders is eligible to participate.

If you want to join contact a_willow aka Michelle Willow, the Group Leader.

So What Do I have to do?

Make a lens about something you can't photograph, using images you've drawn, manipulated or found (on Allposters, Zazzle or Creative Commons etc). Make sure that you don't infringe on copyright in any way!

The point, my friend, is:

-to get you thinking about how you can use pictures differently
-to free your thinking so you can make lenses about whatever you want and taking away the "oh but I don't have the right pictures for that" excuse
-to get you thinking carefully about the pictures you've chosen for your lens and whether they're the right ones
-to inject a little bit more of your personality into your lenses through your pictures

Well sure we are. I mean everyone wants money, fame and glory to some degree.

But you know those places and people and lenses that are all "BUY! BUY! BUY!"? They're kind of off-putting aren't they? I mean, personally, I wouldn't part with my money over a hard sell.

I would, however, be more likely to buy something if I was amused by it and I'm especially more likely to buy something if the place, person or lens is making me laugh, showing me eye candy, appealing to my whimsical side and has a glowing enthusiasm about whatever it is they're talking about.

We need to learn the art of keeping people on our lenses until the end and leave them wanting more - the more hopefully being whatever it is we're selling.

For example, if you're selling a book, don't just put "buy this book", give people a taster of that book, give them a brief glimpse into that world, make them want it and then when you've got them hooked you can casually mention where to get that book via an Amazon module or similar. You can use pictures to help you do this!

I wouldn't describe the lenses below as selling lenses per se, but they give you a little taste as to the sort of thing you can do to make your promotion of products look a little more subtle.

One cool thing you can do is to make your own artwork for your lenses.

I've used a lot of doodles in my lenses and they're not great doodles - some of them are little more than stick figures.

All I did was doodled on a piece of scrap paper with a biro. I then scanned the doodle into my PC. Some of them have had their contrast bumped up on Photoshop, but that's pretty much it - no fancy technology just me and a biro and a piece of paper.

The scrappier they are the more I like them.

Think about images you could make for your lenses.

Are you a doodler?

Perhaps you paint, collage, sew, draw in sand with a stick, make models or dioramas.

Maybe you have photos you could already use but you need to change things in them. For example - maybe you have a photo of a white house and you need a picture of a pink house - you could change this with photo editing software.

Also think about the film Greencard and how the couple run around taking photos to fake their relationship together! That could lead to a fun lens! Just make sure you don't write anything that's going to get you into trouble!

If you have a look at the lens above "Searching for Images" you will find lots of info about where you can find images and how to properly attribute them.

However my two favourite places for finding images are Zazzle and AllPosters, infact my imaginary restaurant lenses were made almost exclusively with images from these two sites. You'll find more about these two websites in the lenses below.

Ok, because this is a pretty open ended contest this week I'm going to give you a few ideas of the sorts of lenses you could work on.

Got an idea that you don't mind sharing? Then add it below.

OK, here we go:

You went on holiday in 1982 and all your photos got damaged in a flood in 1996.
That holiday was so great but you can't make a lens about it without those photos.

Or maybe you're planning on going on holiday somewhere you've never been before.
What are your expectations of this place and how can you describe those expectations in pictorial form?

You've written a novel or you're making a Squidlit lens and you need images to describe the story.
What can you use for images to bring the story to life?

You want to make a lens about your dream house/garden/planet/job/whatever.
What images are you going to use to bring that dream to life?

Fresh Squids can drop by the Using Pictures Classroom on the Fresh Wonders Ning Community.

I'll be there to answer any questions you have about this contest and pictures in general.