two hundred eighty

A year ago, I took up a challenge with a friend, a 365 day challenge to photograph something daily. I knew off the bat (thanks to three-day yontifs) that I would not be able to take a photo each and every day. But I would try.

My goals were pretty simple. Try to stick to the schedule. Try to learn about composition, lighting, and my camera. Try not to fall into the trap of thinking I needed an SLR to take decent photographs for the web. Most importantly I wanted to have fun.

I also never expected to buy a house and be adopted by a cat during this project.

It was hard, but I learned a lot: about how I see the world through the lens and about my preferred method for photography. I also learned where I need to improve.

I prefer macro photography, highlighting details and textures. If I can’t have natural lightly I prefer black and white or sepia tones. I like simple backgrounds. I need to work on photographing food so as not to turn stomachs.

This coming year will be different. I still plan to challenge myself when I attempt to photograph something or someone. I’m not going to force myself to publish the results daily. I am going to try to take better photos of food. Most importantly, in my eyes, I’m going to work on the composition of each and every shot, to the best of my ability. Some days during this project I was burnt out and just photographed something so I could check it off the list. I now have the muscle memory. I no longer have to go for quantity for improvement, but can now start to focus on quality.

Additionally, I am weaning myself off of flickr and transferring photos to another home. While I will loose some features flickr provides I think this will ease my management of the photos. Perhaps it will give me an incentive to do some coding to implement the features I miss most since E is quite busy.

My favourite photographs from this project include:

1. 365.001 … 20090220F, 2. 365.069 … 20090429W, 3. 365.124 … 20090623T, 4. 365.125 … 20090624W, 5. 365.024 … 20090315S, 6. 365.214 … 20090921M, 7. 365.259 … 20091105R, 8. 365.295 … 20091211F, 9. 365.294 … 20091210R

For now, the full set can be seen here.

I ask you, out of this set for the 365 project, which one is your favourite? Why?

Note: according to my records I took 280 photos, but the flickr set is showing fewer photos. I’m working on figuring out why and which ones I may have neglected to upload.

• Category: photo