761. 1/100 Portraits

Today it is 99 days until I'm going to be 60...so to borrow another Blipper's idea of 100 days of portraits....I'm going to post a single portrait every day right up to the day after my 60th Birthday...then maybe...a selfie....it's quite an undertaking for me as I don't tend to take photos of random people when I'm out and about but I'm going to try....

I should have started yesterday but I miscalculated how many days it is to my 60th...so my 100th the day after I'm 60 will have to do....

I started my 100 portraits quest today with a friend from my photography club as we had a coffee this morning...I explained what I wanted to do and she was certainly game for being my first subject!

The photography club was interesting today as we had a very highly accredited chap to show us his images...all of which were very creative...but he had created them from all sorts of different sources which gave a nice effect but somehow didn't seem like photography at all.  For example he added vehicles to landscape images and skies from different places....all of which were expertly done...but a little too much for me....now don't get me wrong....I like to enhance my photos too occasionally and I've been known to edit out unwanted objects and smooth blemishes etc......but this was a huge number of steps further....is it photography?  Only the viewer can decide....but for me I'm not sure....

My friend and I discussed this over coffee afterwards and we seemed to agree that it was not something either of us would aspire to do....in general however I did say that I have produced some manipulated images both here on Blip and also in competitions  but they were always very clearly just that....manipulated...it was an interesting debate....