I decided to make a puzzle from one of my photos. It was a difficult decision: which photo to turn into a puzzle.

A lot of my photos have a lot of negative space filled by sky or water (or soil). For jigsaw puzzles, that becomes a bit of a challenge (calling it challenge instead of bore). I wanted an image that, if it had sky and water, that there be texture to work with it and making the content of each piece unique. As a result, I chose this photo.

There is a lot of texture that the tree and shrub branches provide. Sounded like a great idea. What I didn’t realize at the time I sent it to print and understood AFTER I started assembling the puzzle, is that the WHOLE photo needs to be in focus, no bokeh (especially in the foreground) is welcomed. Why? All the pieces that are part of the sky or the water that have the thin branch/twig in front just becomes a blur in front of the blue. So, the idea that we would get unique content in each piece went down the drain.

I learned this the hard way. I received the puzzle on a Tuesday (15/06) in the evening. Before going to bed, I had already finished assembling the edge pieces. I spent Wednesday AND Thursday evenings trying to put together the sky. It was really difficult as a lot of the pieces looked very similar and blurry.

On Thursday (17/06) before going to bed, I separated the pieces for the “blue” part of the water – i.e. no tree or building reflection on the water. By Friday night, I had finished the “blue” water, i.e. no reflections of trees or buildings. I don’t know why it was easier; if it was the color gradient of the water, if the branches were less blurry or if it was something else. All I know if that I found it easier.

On Tuesday (22/06) I was able to finish the trees and the restaurant by the lake. It felt great to have finished yet another part.

I though that the water reflection was going to be easy. It was harder than I expected, all the different shades of yellow, ochre, orange and brown (and some green) made it very difficult to understand if the piece went on the left or more on the center right part of the puzzle. Finally on 26/06 (just a few minutes ago), I finished putting the last piece in. I am proud of the accomplishment and the effort put into getting it finished. Through all the hurdles, but it is finally complete. Here is the iPhone photo of the completed puzzle.

It did take a little bit longer than I expected to finish the puzzle because I had other photo related activities in which I will talk about in the upcoming days. Stay tunned.

Note: the photos of the puzzle and the progress were taken with my iPhone, not my camera.