Celebi @ Everywhere

This is kind of an old thing that I need to get out of the way, and I've finally gotten a handle on it. Two years ago, I executed a photo project with Pokémon Go and the Mythical Pokémon Mew; I hinted that something similar could be executed with the then-up-and-coming Celebi, and I was right. Likewise, Celebi can be left uncaught to take pictures with before catching, and that of course led me to undertake the same project as with Mew, this time dubbed rightfully as "Celebi @ Everywhere".

For this project, I wanted to take a different approach, and so I decided that two themes would be involved: "nature" and "shrine". According to its origins, Celebi is the protector of the forest, and it has a shrine built in its honor. Therefore, for the pictures, I wanted to take half of them in settings that contain some natural quality, and the other half I wanted to take in places that have a shrine-like appearance. The number of pictures would be the same as for the Mew project (20 pictures), so 10 would be of the "nature" theme and 10 would be of the "shrine" theme.

Since the Mew project, there have been some changes in the way photos are taken, which affected this project as well. From the time Go Snapshot became live, the Trainer name watermark is no more, and thus I decided that all the pictures should be free of the watermark. Also, while theoretically I could catch Celebi and then take pictures afterwards, I found that the sizes and positions of Pokémon tend to be limiting in some cases, which is why I kept Celebi uncaught as with Mew for the purpose of this project. This is one of the reasons why it took such a long time for this project to be completed, aside from the fact that I've simply got other things to do.

Still, in that time, I did manage to take good pictures of Celebi in places that I consider to be representative of the two themes, whether concretely or partially abstractly. There's a local mini city forest that is reminiscent of Celebi's original forest:

And I'm sure Celebi likes vast expanses of rice fields as much as deep forests:

A small shrine is grand for Celebi:

But a larger "shrine" seems to be grander:

These are but four of the 20 pictures I took with Celebi, and the rest of the pictures can be seen in a gallery I have put up in my OneDrive. As with Mew, I have formally ended the project by capturing Celebi, which so happened to complete my Johto Pokédex in Pokémon Go. It's a pretty nice touch, even if it may be somewhat coincidental. After the capture, I took a photo of Celebi using Go Snapshot for comparison:

Unlike quite a few of the pictures in my gallery, Celebi appears fixed in the center and with the same size in each picture. I'll have to admit that this is because my current phone does not support AR+, and I'm limited in what I can do with the device I have. I'm certain that as I am enthusiastic for both photography to a certain amount and Pokémon to a great amount, I may decide to invest in a device capable of AR+, but that's for a later time, way later than now.

This project was fun, but it was also quite time-consuming - maybe not so much because of the effort put in, but because of the downtime between the efforts of the project. While the Jirachi Special Research has been on for some time (and has been on delay for me personally due to this project), I may or may not decide to take it up for it. For now, going by its lore of bringing a bright future, may these pictures do so in the best manner possible given the efforts that went into them.

One year ago: At the Same Time
Two years ago: Shiny Lugia Obsessions
Three years ago: A Passion for Red