Tuesday, July 08, 2014

Photo of the Day project

After talking about doing this for 4 years, I've decided that I'm actually going to try the photography "Project 360".  The main reason I've been turned off to the project in the past is that I've only seen these go in two directions:  either a professional photographer goes on about 4 international trips a year and has dozens of pics of incredible landscape and unique, foreign portraits that are impossible for most people to find, or lay-photog takes about 2 weeks of interesting pictures, then devolves their project into a series of selfies.

No thanks.

I happened to scroll through some old albums of photos from years past, mainly 2005-2008, and I realized that I had some pretty quality art on my hands, and I missed that!  It's especially poignant for me now, as most of my photos were taken in either Boston or NJ (I've since moved to Austin, TX), and all the photos bring back fond memories: my old apartments, parks I used to run through and hang out at, vacations taken, snow (haha!)... I was reminded of the power of an image, and I want to get back to making more of those.  Although I'm sure that at least 80% of my pictures will be taken with my cellphone, I'm hoping that this jumpstarts me back into taking quality photographs with my SLR, and making some hang-on-the-wall level photos.

My rules are going to be fairly simple:

  • Project360 photos will be the posted to Instagram.  I'll (hopefully) keep creating new full albums to my current Picasa portfolio, but the daily pics are going to the 'gram.
  • I can take as many pictures as I want, but only ONE makes the cut for the daily post.
  • In general, I want the photo to encapsulate the major event of the day.  Obviously, some days will be more low-key than others, and I might have more leeway to present a more randomly-themed pic.  
  • I'm going to try as hard as possible to use #hastags as well as possible with these pics, and I'm going to try and keep them consistent.  Feel free to add tags in the comments!
  • If I skip a day, I'm probably going to post two pics the following day.  If I skip two days... ugh! I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.
  • I'm going to pic a photo of the month.  If I get a few people following this project, then I'll have everyone vote for the photo of the month!  (yay interactivity, haha!)
  • I reserve the right to add more rules!  Ha!

That's it!  This year should be pretty interesting, and hopefully I have some good photos to share.  This undertaking should force me to get out a little more, but also give me a reason to be a little more introspective and see and appreciate the beauty that I experience everyday.

If you want to follow the adventure, you can follow me on the gram  --> Instagram

Thanks y'all!  Be well!

-JJ