Below is a list of the themes we have had suggested for the Photo of the Month (including the months they were used):

Abstracts
Beaches (June 2009 and April 2011, joint with Bridges)
Birds & Animals (February 2009)
Bridges (April 2011, joint with Beaches)
Buildings (October 2012)
Flowers, Foliage, etc
Glens
Graffiti
Graveyards (June 2010)
Hills and Mountains (September 2011)
Historic Buildings (July 2008)
Inscriptions/Engravings
Lochs (September 2009)
(Odd) Mileposts
Movement
Night Time (March 2010 - joint with Reflections)
People
Reflections (March 2010 - joint with Night Time)
Ruins
Seascapes
Speed
Telephone/Post Boxes
Transport (October 2008)
Vehicles (September 2010)
Waterfalls (April 2012)
Winter (December 2008 & 2009)

If anyone would like to see more themes added to this list (of if I have missed any!) let us know and we will use this as the basis for any future PotM Theme votes!

Sometimes it's also good to have rather esoteric themes which feed the imagination and offer a little poetic licence.

For example, I once ran a competition with the theme "Feet". Entries varied from, quite literally, feet, to a picture of 200 feet high cliffs.

Another good one could be a colour, eg blue, red .......... again great food for the imagination.

Slightly more obvious are themes like movement or speed.



There's no limit.

Thanks Keith! I have included movement and speed in to the list... they both certainly give plenty of scope; especially the former as it can be anything from transport to running water to a flag flying to a whole host of other ideas; likewise the latter doesn't have to be something moving fast!

Colour also gives us some scope and if it gets any votes maybe we should ask for an actual colour to be specified; that way, if it comes out top then (hopefully) we shouldn't need a further poll to decide the colour... or if its a tie there we can opt for tartan!

As for your other (esoteric) idea, again we could ask for suggestions if that one gets any votes... or maybe we need to include some more options in to the list (like Other - please specify!)

How about Seascapes, after all, none of us are more than 70 miles from the coast.

Also, "abstracts", one that everyone could definitely join in on.

And, at the risk of encouraging stereotypes - "Typically Scottish people" - stand by for flowing beards, kilties and a lot of ginger...!

Andy

Thanks for those Andy; I have included Seascapes (I thought we already had one that covered that, but the two existing water themes just covered Lochs and Waterfalls!) and I have changes People at Work to just People... the problem I have with Typically Scottish people is how to actually define that! Could be interesting I guess!

As for Abstracts... that would be an even harder one to define, but again could be interesting. I'll add it anyway, but could you give us your thoughts on what this could include!

Hi Bruce, Could we have the same theme for March as last year Night Time/Reflections .
Or has anyone got a suggestion ?

I'd personally like to do the Reflections theme again some time, but I think for March (especially as that's tomorrow! ) we'll go with no theme and go with a theme for April... and hopefully by then we will be more organised!