State Of Play

Consider this for a moment... ten grown men wish to play a game. Ten is the right number for two basketball teams, but if you look at us closely you'll quickly come to the realization that we're not going to be playing basketball. What then? Monopoly? No. Poker? No. Scrabble? No. Did I mention that we're not going to even be in the same place? So, what game then? Telephone!

So, you know how to play telephone, don't you? That's the party game where a bunch of six year-olds sit next to each other and whisper a message in each other's ears until the message comes out the other end and it's completely different. But there's a twist: we're not going to whisper, we're going to play with cameras!

We call it The Daily Photo Game. The first guy posts a picture on-line, the second player has twenty four hours to post the next picture (from files or newly created) based on the previous picture, and so on, until each of us has played one picture. There are ten photographers playing the game, so each round takes ten days to play. The best part is that because we're playing with pictures, it can be a spectator sport... that is, you can watch us play.

Who are the players? Well... Jay Ahrend, Charley Akers, David Blattel, Eliot Crowley, Blue Fier, Bob Nease, myself, Bob Stevens, Marty Trailer and Russ Widstrand. We've created a web site (Marty did, actually) based on Eliot's great idea, and now the game's afoot.
How did this come about? We all have an eleventh friend in common, Ian Summers, who organized his Heartstorming circles to help spark creativity among groups of creatives. Most of the players in this game were members of a Heartstorming circle in Los Angeles, now dormant, so this is a sort of revival of that particular group. You may be wondering how a New Yorker living in Chicago became part of a Los Angeles Heartstorming circle... so am I... but no matter, the play's the thing.

Want to watch ten photographers play a visual game? Point your web browser to The Daily Photo Game. We hope you enjoy our little game.

Oops, I've got to run... it's my turn.