365 Days in Photos

I don't generally look back and look to see how far I've come and I don't generally look forward to see how far I want to go, but it is hard not to think about these things when the new year is quickly approaching and the old year is at an end.

I have the usual goals for the new year - be better organized at work and at home, exercise more, eat better and spend more time with family and friends.  The trick is finding the time to do all the things I need to do AND all the things I want to do.

And sometimes, despite feeling overwhelmed with stuff, I can't help but pile on more things.

And speaking of piling on more things... I've been thinking about doing a 365 Project for a while.  That would be a picture a day for a year.  Why would I want to do that?  Well, for a few reasons:

1. It will help me be a better photographer
2. It will help me look outside the box, to stretch my imagination and to take pictures of things I may not normally have.
3. It will give me a record of my year - it won't necessarily reflect everything going on in my life but I hope it will hit on some of the highlights and the lowlights and of course some of the boring every day moments.

If you do a quick google search, you'll find a tonne of 365 projects - some successful, some failures in just a few weeks.  And the variety is endless -  some people do self portraits, some people do their pets, some people do a single object and others just do "their daily life".   Self portraits scare me, I pretty much take pictures of my pets every day anyway, and, there isn't a single object that I love so much that I want to spend 365 days with it. :) I considered following Marlin around for a year and photographing him, but I have a feeling he wouldn't appreciate that much and what happens when we spend a day or two apart? So I've decided to do my daily life. 

Technically with a theme this broad, I'll have lots of subject matter at my disposal (but keep in mind I don't do much other than work, eat and sleep).  There will probably be lots of pet pictures - Coulee, Lacey, Lu as well as clients' pets.  But there will also be people, places, and objects.  

I'm not going to force myself to edit and post the pictures every day, but I will be taking them every day.  If I don't have time to post a picture each night, I'm not going to lose sleep over it.  My goal is to take a picture a day, not share a picture a day.  I'm sure some of the pictures will be lame and will be taken just because I have to and I'm OK with that.  It is like a diet - some days you are allowed to cheat, it doesn't mean you have failed and should stop.

I think I'll have weeks of randomness and weeks of themes.  A theme might be based on a colour, an activity or an object.  I hope the themes will keep me motivated to take pictures I probably wouldn't otherwise take and the random weeks will keep me taking pictures of things I love to take pictures of (mainly dogs!).  Or I might just make things up as I go along.  We'll have to see how it goes.  If too many rules start to feel restrictive, I'll change them.  If not enough structure leaves me floundering, I'll change that too.  It is my project and I can do what I want.  ;)  I've never done this before so I'll have to figure out what works for me.

I'm not exactly sure where I'm going to post them all.  I'm thinking they will probably all go on to my flickr stream as I'm not sure where else to clump them all together.  I'm sure many of them will find their way on to the blog as well, I just want to be able to look at them all together too.

I'll keep you all posted!