Photo-A-Day: The Experience - DPChallenge Forums

Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM

06/15/2005 10:37:16 PM · #1

Photo-A-Day

The Experience

The Mosaic

The Project

Greetingsâ�¦

I am 3 days away from completing my first 365-day Photo-A-Day project. The year went by much quicker than I expected, and I had a great time with the project. I learned a lot of valuable lessons with this project.

Lesson 1: Commitment

Upon completion of this project, the commitment itself is inspiring. I managed to give some amount of time every day to photography during the last year. That was a huge challenge. There were some days where I simply didnâ��t feel like taking my camera out of the bag. Some of the photos in this project would have been better if I hadnâ��t. There were a handful of days where I simply snapped something to keep the project intact. At any rate, the daily effort, whether it was minimal or required several hours of my time, showed me that I have a serious level of interest in the hobby.

Lesson 2: Snapshots are OK

As photographers, we sometimes get too wrapped up in shooting high quality images with mass appeal. We donâ��t like to show/distribute our normal everyday garbage. We may be afraid of the â��critiqueâ�� that may follow or that someone will not think we are working up to our usual standards. Many photographers wonâ��t show work they feel is below par. This project helped me get over this. I have no fear of meeting someone elseâ��s expectations, as long as my own are met. If my own goal is achieved, the project is successful.

Lesson 3: Being Prepared

This project taught me to carry a camera with me most of the time. If I donâ��t have my full camera bag with me, I always had my small point and shoot camera close by. Opportunities come and go without regards to the whereabouts of my camera gear. I have to be prepared. After doing this for a year, you wonâ��t likely find me without a camera close by.

Lesson 4: Seeing

This project taught me to constantly look for photo opportunities rather than waiting for them to present themselves. I see many things that I would have never seen before, even from a photographic standpoint.

Lesson 5: The Finished Project

Each photo that I created for this project has some information attached to it. It may be a single sentence or a couple paragraphs describing the photo and surrounding circumstances. The project, for the most part, became a 1-year diary of my daily life that included a photograph for each day. The printed mosaic will be on my wall as a constant reminder of these lessons.

Skip

Canon EOS-1D X

06/15/2005 10:47:52 PM · #2

nice work, john, and good lessons. cheers to a well-done effort!

Catherine_B

Canon EOS-70D

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM

06/15/2005 10:53:12 PM · #3

Wow! This is inspiring and impressive. The only thing I can say I have done everyday this past year is brush my teeth! What a wonderful way to commit to a project and then share what you learned. I took a quick look at the photos, and will go back for a more close viewing later.

Congrats!

BikeRacer

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

06/15/2005 10:54:14 PM · #4

Great work! Have you decided what comes next?

Nitin

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6

06/15/2005 11:01:26 PM · #5

Wow! That's inspiring, John.. I just might start my photo-a-day!

Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

06/16/2005 12:05:22 AM · #6

Originally posted by BikeRacer:

Great work! Have you decided what comes next?

Unfortunately, I have not. I do plan to take a break from it. A very short one... and then start on another year long project with some sort of specific direction.

tonyv

Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi

06/16/2005 09:53:14 AM · #7

John

This is something I would like to try. What are the rules you set yourself? Presumably the picture must be taken each day. Was post-processing allowed? If so, did it have to be completed the day the picture was taken? Was the mosaic updated each day? Could the subject be repeated if the previous days photo was a flop?

Thanks in advance
Tony

Bebe

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

06/16/2005 10:06:37 AM · #8

Congratulations! That is an awesome commitment & you have some great work posted. It's inspiring to see someone accomplish that - I've bookmarked the page & am considering trying it myself. The lessons you learned seemed very worthwhile.

I'm wondering if you learned or anything about your own style or art, or if you found yourself developing your own style. Can you look back at the pictures & see a continuing focus, or developing focus? Did it help you decide what you like in your own images?

Thanks!

06/16/2005 10:43:10 PM · #9

Originally posted by tonyv:

The only rule I had for myself was that I needed to take at least one photo for the project every 24 hours (give or take an hour). I allowed myself to use photos that were created around midnight on the day of my choice rather than the actual day. There weren't but two or three of these in the collection though. I never limit myself on post processing. I do whatever I feel needs to be done to an image. Most of these images have minimal processing but some have a lot. I don't update the mosaic every day... just whenever I feel like it...

Sigma 18-250 f/3.5 - 6.3 DC OS HSM

06/16/2005 10:44:24 PM · #10

Originally posted by Bebe:

I'm wondering if you learned or anything about your own style or art, or if you found yourself developing your own style. Can you look back at the pictures & see a continuing focus, or developing focus? Did it help you decide what you like in your own images?

Thanks!

I learned that I enjoy photographing people, but I sorta knew this before I started this project. The PaD project just gave me a greater opportunity to work on that theme.

Tuckersmom

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ1

06/16/2005 10:55:36 PM · #11

Wow - what an amazing body of work. Thanks for sharing and making the commitment to do this. Congratulations!

drsdnblues

Canon EOS-20D

06/17/2005 05:10:02 AM · #12

I see your still kicking A$$!

Great job! I've always admired your work.

Jesse Weldon

Alain

Nikon D7100

06/17/2005 06:54:01 AM · #13

This is great John, I'm planning to start my own shortly.

The mosaic is great also, did you build it yourself or did you use some kind of templates?

Is anybody knows about existing templates for PaD (365 days) and/or montly?

Thanks

thatcloudthere

Canon EOS-1D

Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM

06/17/2005 07:39:26 AM · #14

Good work, John...you inspired me to start the PaD on Jan 1st, 2005.

I started getting down because too many of the days were "grab the camera and shoot a photo before bed" kind of photos during a particular busy period in May. I've since then stopped the project and feel much better about it since then.

Now, next time I try it I'll be better prepared - lessons have been learned nonetheless.

emorgan49

Olympus E-5

Olympus 50mm f/1.8 MF Normal Zuiko

06/17/2005 02:23:01 PM · #15

bump - missed this post.

Juniper366

Canon EOS-10D

Tamron AF 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 XR Di LD Aspherical IF for Canon

06/17/2005 05:15:36 PM · #16

What a kickin idea!! I can imagine the amazing stuff you learned!! I'm going to do that! That is a great idea! (did i say that already?)

jen

Sigma 18-125mm f/3.5-5.6 DC for Canon

06/18/2005 12:38:46 PM · #17

Today is the final day... completion is close :)

Kavey

Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi

06/18/2005 12:55:49 PM · #18

The final mosaic looks absolutely terrific, John!
Congratulations on the completion and on the quality of the finished summary poster!
Really nice!
I've been looking at the pbase pics now and again but I'm just browsing the entire collection again now it's complete.

EDIT: I just now noticed the final day is missing - took me time as I was browsing.
GET YOUR ARSE IN GEAR JOHN, we wanna see the last one!
:o)

Message edited by author 2005-06-18 13:04:29.

Balko

Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi

Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

06/18/2005 01:49:03 PM · #19

Originally posted by jmsetzler:

I learned that I enjoy photographing people, but I sorta knew this before I started this project. The PaD project just gave me a greater opportunity to work on that theme.

I do too, but in these days, I don't want to alarm or annoy anyone, so I don't shoot people. Do you ask beforehand if you may take their picture? Do you get model releases for each one?

Jacko

Canon EOS-20D

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

06/18/2005 02:20:54 PM · #20

Congrats John! I've been going strong since January 1 of this year. I'm happy I took on the project because I've been so busy I'd forget to pick up the camera.

John, you're right: Snapshots are ok.

06/18/2005 02:29:18 PM · #21

Originally posted by papagei:

I do too, but in these days, I don't want to alarm or annoy anyone, so I don't shoot people. Do you ask beforehand if you may take their picture? Do you get model releases for each one?

I don't normally ask beforehand if I want something to be candid. I never get model releases. I don't need them for anything. If I'm out shooting for the newspaper, I just get name, age, and place of residence, which is enough.

06/18/2005 03:04:57 PM · #22

Completion :)

e301

06/18/2005 03:09:58 PM · #23

I'm interested to know why you first posted this three days before you'd finished?

e