a Picture and the Story behind it

During today´s commute, I had some time to think about this month´s word: Projects.

I remembered Me2´s introduction quoting the Project Management Institute stating that projects have a definite beginning, a limited duration and an end. And I also remembered that sometimes projects may fail. And then I thought of..- well, it was another thing, but long story short:

My thoughts started with this month´s word Projects and ended with a certain picture I took the other day.

When planning for a pic I´m usually thinking of a certain scene or situation that I´d like to see as a photo. Then I´m thinking about the minifigures and props required, a place where it could be arranged and the weather, the light, etc.etc. If it all comes together at best I end up with a pic. I never thought of these plannings as Projects; maybe they are, maybe they are not. (Though they are definitely something else than this month´s little Project with three pics.)

Anyways, the one pic my thoughts went to today is another kind of Project to me (though it does differ from the above mentioned definition).

Had there been a working title it would have been “The essence of social media”– “Had there been” as I didn´t even know it would become a Project when it started.

Quite some time ago I saw that a fellow IGer shared a pic of a book he had just read. I was curious because the book was in English and we´re both Germans. He was very passionate about the story and instantly sent it my way when I asked about it. Now, being a lazy and slow reader I don´t usually read books in a different language but gave it a go.

And oh, how I enjoyed it.

The book was “The  Martian” by Andy Weir.

Being a fan of the Classic Lego Space theme the book had me hooked instantly. To this day I never managed to watch the movie with Matt Damon and I´m not quite sure I ever will as the book created many beautiful images of Mars in my mind. I thought about trying to shoot a scene from the story in Lego where the protagonist finds an abandoned rover on Mars; but as I wasn´t too pleased with bricks/props I had back then I put the thought aside.

After some months of discussing “The Martian” with other Igers I was sent a MarkWatney (the story´s protagonist) minifigure  by an English gentleman. And after some more time a wonderful American friend sent me a Matchbox model of the NASA Mars rover Curiosity! Finally I had the props I needed for the image that I´ve had in mind.

All that was left now was finding a sandy scenery (a beach) and some sunlight (day seven of my holidays).

For the second time in one blog post I´ll try to tell the long story short:

This image I´m writing about may appear to be just a snap taken on a beach. To me it is the result of my (long-term) Project “The essence of social media” as it contains the contributions of four different people from three different countries and only two of them have ever met in person. (A huge thank you to the other three- you know who you are!)

Have you got a long-term project?

Have you ever tried to collaborate with one or more people for a single project?

Or maybe you´d like to share a link to it in the comments?

I´d love to read about it and your experience.

-Stefan

HerrSM

A Non-Belgian living in Hamburg, Germany. Curiosity-driven and mostly to be found on tiny adventures and great journeys.