For many, the new years is a time to make resolutions and develop new habits. Personally, I’ve never really understood why we do this—it seems to me it’s more of an opportunity to procrastinate on making changes that we don’t really want to make. This year, though, I’m getting in on on the fun.
It’s less about developing a new habit than it is a convenient marker to anchor on for starting a 365 photo project. If you’ve never heard of 365 photo projects before, it’s pretty much what it sounds like—you commit to taking one photo each day for a whole year. That sounds like a relatively low bar to meet, but it’s surprisingly difficult to complete. It’s something you have to do everyday! Do you realize how few things we do, consistently, day-in and day-out that we’re not actually forced to do? It’s kind of big thing.
But I’ve committed to improving my photography, producing more images, pushing out of my comfort zone (in both photographic and non-photographic efforts) and getting more involved in the photography community. I’ve often felt during the last year that I wasn’t taking enough photos to actually improve my work, and I’ve certainly not taken enough to sustain inspiration, so I’ll be looking to do both of those things with this project. I also want to improve my iPhone photography, and 365 photo projects are uniquely suited to do so.
Of course, there is risk here, but it’s mostly in failing. I’ll be participating over at 365project.org, the public nature of which helps to drive commitment, but Courtney Slazinik over at ClickItUpANotch.com has a really nice post on her past experience with a 365 project, why she’s starting a new one and why she’s doing it all over again despite expecting to fail at completing it. Her blog post title is worth calling out here: It’s Not Failing If You Try. It’s her 5th 365 project!
One of the things I want to be very deliberate about with this project is recording my efforts. I want to look back at this time next year and compare images and see how my photos have improved. To that end, I’ll be uploading images to my 365 page, and I’ll set up a category on this blog, where I’ll post a weekly update on my latest set of images. If you’re intrigued, go check out Courtney’s page featuring a bunch of 365 projects.
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