July: 365 photos challenge

And it’s July (or almost not anymore), but that’s not the point. The point is my July resolution. But first: a quick overview of the year to date.

January: Being happy – mostly I am, but I have been under some form of stress lately. You know: life.
February: Sexy sleep wear – will need some more to get through the cold, but I’m doing my best.
March: Read squash rules – read it, playing, needed to restring hubbie’s racket after Friday’s game. Woops.
April: Donate clothes - Done.
May: Plant flowers – did it. AND the plant seems to still be alive.
June: Figuring out “What do I want?” – That deserved a post of its own.

So July, another month, another resolution.

The short version: Get creative.

But, as “get creative” is a bit on the vague side and vague often leads to not bothering, I tried to turn it into a task. And this is what I figured:

365 days of photos.

I can’t remember from where this concept first came to my attention. It might have been an idea on the digital photography school website. But more recently I started following @olliegapper on Twitter and something he was doing reminded me of this “project”.

So here are the rules as I remember/understand them.

• Take a picture every day for a year.
• Put them somewhere people can see them (I think that’s mainly to keep you motivated.)

So I decided to give it a try, but add a few more guidelines to help me be able to realistically complete this challenge and eliminate the “but I didn’t have the time” excuse:

  

• Use my cell phone (Samsung Jet) to take the pictures and only use editing features on my phone to make adjustments.
• Upload it to Twitpic every day, as I can send it easily and directly from my phone.
• Blog about it once a week. This was @SharonDes1’s idea. And I will do my bestest to stick to it.

Okay, so today is Day 9 and so far so good, although I did realise that I’ll have to add 2 more guidelines:

• If the battery runs flat, I can use hubbie’s iPhone (like Day 7) and
• If I’m out of cell reception (does happen sometimes) I must still take the pic, and upload as soon as I’m back in “civilisation” :) 

Edit: More giudelines, from day 39

• When I forget (happened once so far on Day 21) then I must simply send in an extra pic the next day.
• I will still do blog posts about the challenge, but it will be closer to every 2-3 weeks.

So, what am I hoping to gain from this?

To see the world again, better my photo skills, to break through creative boundaries and improve all aspects of my creative endeavours, and (this is a big one) have fun.

Wish me luck. If you want to keep an eye on my progress, follow me on Twitter, or just bounce straight to my Twitpic page. I’ll be adding the tag #365photos to tweets and photos that are part of the challenge.

Hopefully in a year’s time I can look back at this experience, not only saying that I have completed it, but that I learnt something. And I’ll have the “memories” to prove it…

(P.S. The pic above is "Day 5", my favourite of the week.)