August 2014 – Junk Yard

Number 36. Thirty Six. It’s not just a bus I didn’t like to get in my Uni days (they wanted exact change only.) This is the 36th time which the Pictonaut Challenge has sallied forth into the grimy, forgotten places of cyberspace. So this iteration will see the closing out of the third year that I’ve been doing this. That is not an inconsiderable span of years. For three whole years I’ve cranked out a horrid and wretched wordascope once and month, every month, without fail. It’s an achievement of sorts, an achievement which is now a vast sprawling behemoth of some forty-seven and a half thousand words. So I think I’ve earnt the right to blow my own trumpet a little. But I won’t. Mainly because I don’t know how to play the trumpet. Also it sounds vaguely like a sex thing. Some how I’ve kept going, though I fear my creative juices may now be running low. I fear that I may have to go scrounging around in the Junk Yard.

That of course was merely a set up for this month’s title. I could probably keep churning out this dross until the cows come home. This month’s image is the work of Kali Ciesemier who I discovered a few years back on tumblr after I saw her truly chilling depiction of Roose Bolton from Game of Thrones. I have a particular liking for the way she uses colour, it always feels so strong and vibrant, even when the colours are washed out and pale when viewed on their own. There’s a lot to work with in this image, the water, the junk, the person clambering over it, the city in the distance. A great many angle to work with.

So break out your crowbars and angle-grinders and get ready to strip the far-flung recesses of your brain for literary salvage.

The Rogue Verbumancer – The myths of the Great Yard of the Junk Barrens

The Mick – Rise, rise, rise.

James Clayton – The Death of Earth Patrol <Edit: Added 4th Jan 2014>