I strive for a new photo, but most times the best candidate is something I already had.
Before COVID, I used to get out and about and take more photos. Then I got out of the habit, and now I am less inclined to “go the distance” to get a good frame. So almost all of mine are from The Personal Library, and I don’t participate if I don’t think I have one that meets the theme – even if only in my own mind.
I’m not a big photographer, so I don’t have much of an archive. And accordingly, I don’t usually compete. But sometimes, I’ll see a theme and say to myself, “I can get a photo of that”, and go out and take it.
I only ever use a photo taken after the theme is announced. Personal opinion, but I see no point in just looking through my archive.
j
Click through for all of it. Best I can do. There aren’t any purple mountains in Surrey.
j
Hot damn, there are a lot of amazing photos already this month. Turns out choosing “beautiful” as the theme nets a lot of beautiful photos! Who knew? 
I don’t have any photos I’d classify as beautiful. Even the sunsets are kind of dull or marred by interrupting chimneys and power lines. I have narrowed it down to one, so I’ll post it tonight when I get home from work.
There is a lot of beauty in these photos. I like this category.
Me too. It made me take a good look at some of my old photos, some I hadn’t really appreciated before. And of course, the joy of seeing what you guys have!
We’ve determined that composited images like the examples I showed here are ineligible, otherwise, I might have been tempted to use that for my entry this month. When I saw this theme, I had thought that perhaps I might hope for a chance to get some new image of @Seanette that might make a good entry. but the deadline is fast approaching, so I’ve reached into my older images for an entry.
I was wondering if anyone would submit pictures of people for this one…
Just posted my entry. Background:
The National Trust property Leith Hill Place stands on (unsurprisingly) Leith Hill, which is the highest point in south east England. That view is to the south. Despite appearances, that’s pretty densely populated territory. The hills you see in the distance are the South Downs, about 20 miles away.. If you look with the eye of faith you can just about make out Chanctonbury ring (or maybe Cissbury - I can never remember which is the one you can see).
j
Heads up: deadline for all your beautiful entries is tonight.
mmm
Maybe it’s a bit of a cliché, but to most men, is there anything more beautiful than the female form, the sight of a beautiful woman, especially one’s own wife?
It seems surprising to me that I am the only one, who, on seeing this theme, went right away to that interpretation of it, regarding no other possible interpretation as coming anywhere close to being as appropriate?
I do have several images of @Seanette that are even more beautiful than the one I selected, but alas, the most beautiful that I have of her are images that I am not at liberty to share with others.
This brings me to a question for @Mean_Mr.Mustard and any others that may have authority in this manner: What are the restrictions with regard to images that may be used in these challenges, which might be deemed risqué? Would tasteful, artistic depictions of nudity be allowed, and to what degree? I assume outright pornography is right out.
Chances are, it probably won’t create a problem for me, because surely whatever boundaries are going to be set between @Seanette and myself as to what kind of images I would ever share of her are likely to be at least as strict, if not more so, than what this forum is likely to set as far as what may be shared hereon. But it would be good to have some clear idea of where the lines are. This theme, in particular, seems to me like one where one might be tempted to get too close to that line, or even to cross it.
For the rules of this message board, we don’t have any prohibition on nudity, so long as the two-click rule is satisfied: Any viewer needs to click at least twice, after reading a description, before seeing any NSFW material. One way of doing this would be to make the image a link instead of an in-line image, and then hide that link in spoiler or details tags.
Of course, the subject of the picture must also have given their permission for it to be shared in such a way.
@Mean_Mr.Mustard may, of course, set stricter rules for the contest. I’ll leave that up to him.
So, as far as sharing any content on this forum as a whole, anything is allowed under the “two-click rule”, no matter how risqué or explicit or even outright pornographic?
I suppose there still needs to be a line as to what needs to be “two-clicked” and what does not.
Examples of well-known NSFW images
How about L’Origine du monde (1866) by Gustave Courbet? Before my previous post, I would probably have assumed that it was not allowed to share that or anything very similar to it on this forum, and now, I would expect that it would have to be “two-clicked” to share it. That’s pretty far past any line of anything I am likely to share.
What about L’Odalisque blonde (1751,1752) by François Boucher? Much more modest than L’Origine du monde. Would an image like this need to be “two-clicked”?
Perhaps a more detailed discussion should take place, outside the scope of this photo challenge thread, though ultimately, it should also be covered, with @Mean_Mr.Mustard, where the line is to be drawn with regard to what is allowed in the challenges. Perhaps, if we define the line where the “two-click rule” comes into play, that might be the same line that @Mean_Mr.Mustard wants to draw for what is allowed in the challenges.
Sigh. I just got done saying that links like that needed to follow the two-click rule.
I’m looking for a clear, objective definition of “links like that”, or at least as close to such an objective definition as is reasonably possible. Somewhere there is a line. To follow a rule, one needs to have some idea where that line is.
It comes up now for me because, if not for other constraints, there are images I might have wanted to submit for this challenge, where I would have needed to know whether they crossed the line or not.
As of now, I am not significantly more enlightened on this matter than I was before I asked. If anything, the line appears to have been pushed farther out than I previously would have assumed.
And mea culpa, I see that I failed to correctly follow the “two-link” principle, though I fully intended to do so. Thanks for correcting that.
It’s A subject for sure. But it probably says something about me that my first thought was ‘bird’ and I then checked and wondered why nobody had posted one 
. But that’s just a bias of mine - I like looking at pictures of people, attractive or otherwise, but I’ve never had the slightest interest in actually shooting them.
I am aware, in some dialects, of “bird” as a slang term for a girl or a woman. Is that what you mean here, or do you literally mean an animal of the class Aves?