Do you 365?

Day 118: Cottage

In November 2008 I embarked upon a grand project: to take a photograph every day for a year. It started on a whim, a momentary decision that I needed to do something, but by the end of that year I had learned a lot; about life, love, and most importantly about photography.

My initial reason for starting was simple: I had been bought a camera and I wasn’t using it enough. Weeks would pass between trips out onto the moors and, truth be told, I felt a little guilty that such an expensive gift was going to waste.

In time, however, I realised that I wanted more out of my challenge than just 365 photographs. I wanted good photographs, photographs of substance, and that was going to need a little more commitment.

Day 122

So, what did I learn?

For one thing, 365 photographs is a lot. Taking a photograph everyday is easy if you don’t care what you get, but if you want to use it to expand your abilities you need to set some boundaries before you start.

It really helps to know what you want to get out of the project. What I didn’t know when I started was that I would come to enjoy the idea of having a whole year’s worth of photos to look back on. I would have liked it even more if I could have linked each one to the events in my life and written even a small note to accompany it for posterity.

I can also say that if I had thought it through beforehand I certainly wouldn’t have started at ASDA on a rainy November evening!

Day 136: Firetube

When I was part way through I realised that I could use the fact that I was publishing my photographs to enforce a certain discipline within myself so I stopped taking backup shots.

Deciding to photograph only one thing each day and that once you have started photographing it you can’t move on to something else can be a very useful way of focussing your energies on getting the best shot you can. I can say with certainty that my ability to compose a photograph was far stronger at the end than the beginning.

A photo a day also challenges your creative abilities. I would recommend that if you are going to start a new project like this you take some time to list as many different creative treatments as possible. If your life is fairly limited, geographically, you will soon start to run out of things to photograph and you may need to start looking at the world in different ways to find new inspiration.

In my collection I have a series shot in black and white, a series shot with a white balance shift to make everything green, a lot of HDR, extension tubes, selective colouring, desaturated shots, deliberate lens flare, different perspectives, long exposure, and more.

Day 294

Just as important though is the option not to use these things. If you really want to test yourself you could decide to forego Photoshop and raw conversion and post your JPGs straight from the camera, forcing yourself to solve your problems at the shoot.

Also remember that not everyday has warmth and calm blue skies, but every day requires a photograph.

If you don’t have a cat (or friends with a cat) or you want some variety then you really need to consider what you are going to do when the weather is so bad you don’t want to leave the house, when you travel in darkness and don’t have time for lunch, when the sky is grey, or you are simply not in the mood. At some point you will need some props.

I’ve used my slinky, a toy race car, a guitar, a bowl of milk with photocards and chilli flakes, burning afershave (don’t try this at home kids) , a mag-light in a cider bottle, the obligatory kitten, and others.

Above all else, whether you decide on self-portraits, random images, images of your life, or anything else, you need to commit to it and give yourself time each day to get the shot. It may not be the north face of the Eiger but it isn’t always easy and this makes it all the more satisfying when you finish.

Is there a moral to this story?

Day 176: Letter

Well, the moral is that sometimes it is the challenges that we can learn the most from.

If you haven’t tried it then challenge yourself the next time you shoot. It doesn’t need to be 365, it could be a day of nothing but black and white, a day with your least used lens, a day without processing, or pretty much anything else. As long as it isn’t easy you are certain to learn something.

Then come back and tell us about it.

You can see all of my 365 shots on my Flickr stream. If you have started, finished, or are in the process of a challenge yourself then please feel free to post a link to your set and let us know how it went for you.

Andrew Rickmann is a regular attendee at Exposure Leeds events – you’ll probably see him at this weekend’s trip to Harewood House if not, why not pop over and check out his Flickr stream.

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