December’s Pictonaut Challenge

So December’s finally rolled around; the downward slide towards the end of the year. What a year it has been, but not in a good way, not for most people anyway. 2011 has been pretty awful, a year where I’m sure many people have uttered “well, it can’t get any worse can it?” only to then find out that, actually, it can. And what do we have to look forward to? In the long-term, more of the same. A government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich; a world primed to explode, collapse or implode; the bad times of world unrest raising its head once again. Gone are the free and happy peace-loving days of the 90s where everything really looked like it was one the up. Now we’re all back in the trenches, with nothing but shit and shells raining down on our heads. In the short-term we’ve got Christmas. That’s all right I suppose, even if it does mean spending time with people you generally dislike or don’t get on with, all the while having to smile and remain civil. Call me a cynic but everything I can see on the horizon is pants; garishly coloured pants woven from misery, misfortune and despair. But there is a glimmer of hope, a shinning beacon, a lighthouse. It is the return of the Pictonaut Challenge and it is your only hope for salvation in this dark and benighted world. (Maybe, but probably not)I spent quite a while musing over what to throw at you this month. I ruled out immediately something “Christmasy”. That would be dull, boring, predictable. That and there’s nothing in my Pictonaut folder that is even vaguely Christmasy. Yes I have a folder of pictures for this interweb based shenanigans. I am ever prepared and ready, as uncharacteristic as that might be or sound. Eventually my computer made the decision for me. Over the past three days this image has cropped up with unevering regularity. With it being only 1 of 155 possible desktop images to choose from I took it to be a sign.

The picture is the work of one Shou Tajima. It has a name, I found it out, I hunted it down like a ravenous dog (by which I mean I googled it, I googled it good, I googled it to death), but I’ll not reveal it to you until the end of the month, lest it colour your opinions and ideas. I want you fresh and pure, I want your brain meats unmolested by outside influence. To you it shall be known only as The Psychedelic Lady. The image is a personal favourite of mine. I like the way those blocks of bright luminous neon shades contrast with the flat grey. It somehow breathes life into it, fills it fill an artistic vitality, a fundamental vibrancy that is so lacking in the harsh world around us.

I’m sure you know the drill by now. Picture; words, one thousand thereof; write.

So with the picture at your disposal let’s set the fiction mill a-grinding, sharpen up our plot swords and journey out into the untamed wild-lands of imagination.