The Joys of a 365 Photography Project
A 365 Photography Project (a photo a day for a year) is a fantastic way to improve your skills as a photographer as the dedication, practice and perseverance required can really pay massive dividends in both discipline and vision.
The most important point to be aware of before you start is the project must be fun. If it becomes a chore then it is going to be very difficult to continue. Initially, I delayed starting a 365 project because I was thinking that I do not carry a camera around every day and even if I did, I did not fancy having to process a photo every day. It all felt like a lot of work for little gain.
The compromise for me was to use my phone, I always have it with me and the camera is pretty good. Additionally, I decided to limit post-processing to what I could do on the phone (with a couple of exceptions). In my case this was mainly flipping to black and white and adjusting the contrast.
The next consideration was what to photograph. Do I stick to a theme or just take random pictures ? For this I decided that I would take a picture each day that was different than any of the pictures that I had taken previously within the project with no specific theme or direction.
I was now ready to start. I had some bad days when inspiration was lacking or I wasn't feeling in the mood, but continued anyway, even on occasions tucked up in bed and suddenly remembering that I had not taken the days snap, then leaping out of bed and wandering around in the middle of the night trying to find something to photograph.
This exercise of trying to find something to photograph was the most useful part of the project as it forced me to look at familiar objects in a different way and take shots that I would not have given a moment's thought to previously.
When, a year later, I took the last photo, their was a sense of relief and achievement. I was pleased with the end result and was surprised by how much I had learnt doing this project even if some of the photos are not so interesting.
If you are considering doing a 365 project, then you might find the following tips helpful.
It does not matter which day to start, it also does not matter if you skip the odd day, although I found that this increases the risk of aborting the project. That's no big deal as the project is supposed to be fun and not a chore, but I found forcing myself to take a picture on a bad day helped, as I felt I had maintained continuity, but that is just my personal view.
Keeping it simple (for example, just using phone and in phone editing). Again a personal view, but a really ambitious project might become a bit of a chore.
Backups... Cannot stress this one enough... losing all your pictures 3 or 4 months into the project does not bear thinking about.
Consider posting your daily picture onto social media, you might get some positive feedback which again can help with motivation on the bad days.
Keep the photos of this project in a separate folder/album than your other photos, this will give you a cleaner overview of the project, especially as the year goes on.
Printing. Rather fun to print the completed project. I printed mine in a contact sheet format on some nice metallic A3+ Paper, (nearly 30 sheets), but it was worth the effort and is very rewarding seeing the hardcopy from time to time (and hanging the odd one on the wall).
And of course the first and last rule... have FUN !!
Some Examples from my 365 Project
