how a photo a day blog helped me achieve personal photography goals
In 2006 I started a photo blog and decided to publish a photo a day. There was a definite purpose to this. No, it wasn’t so much to get my work seen by a bunch of people, it was so I would commit to creating new work. It was a way to force me to continually create. As a professional commercial photographer I continually photograph for clients. You might think the last thing I’d want to do is shoot on my days off. Well, I happen to love photography and it was time to explore a bit outside of the commercial studio.
The photo blog was partially inspired by Tiger Woods, Yes, it’s true and I’m not even a golfer. Tiger Woods, at the height of his career, decided to make a major change to his swing. Imagine that, the guy was already the best ever and he decided to change the way he does things, realizing there would be penalties in the short term. His game may suffer for awhile. But, in the end, he would benefit (or so he hoped). The big thing is that he realized it would take the dedication of an entire year to enact a change.
In 2006 I was trying to change my swing. My plan was to create a bunch of work without being judgmental, to just let it go where it wanted to go. Some things might work and some might not.
That visual diary, which I called 37 Seconds, is still floating around out there on the internet at 37seconds.my-expressions.com . I didn’t meet the goal of a photo every day but there are hundreds of images there. It’s a big ‘ol gob of photos that I added to off and on for awhile.
Okay, so that was the sketchbook. What were the results? What did the experience lead to? Now, a couple of years later, I realize that my year long experiment produced these rewards:
- My recent show, Forgotten America, at the Carnegie Arts Center
- A book of images from 2006 that I self-published: thirty seven seconds
- This series of images from a road trip down Highway 61 **NOTE: the gallery is still functional but the rest of the site is no longer functioning
- Publication in the B&W Magazine 2007 Single Image Contest Awards
- The sale of a few prints
At the time it seemed like a year completely dedicated to just experimenting would be a risk that might not pay off. After thinking about it, maybe it’s time to start planning another “photo a day” for 2009!
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I started a Photograph a Day blog sixty-one days ago. It forces us as photographers to look at the world around us in a different way and sharpen skills. I enjoy the challenge of finding something new to photograph every day.
Thanks for this insight. I started a photo-a-day project a few weeks ago, not to be seen by a bunch of people (haven’t even told anyone the website), but to meet some personal creativity goals as well as to improve my shooting skills/habits. Since then I’ve taken an average of 45 images a day and posted one a day. It’s like practice, for me, and the more I do it the more proficient I hope to get. Already my goals are starting to be realized - and changed - by what I’m learning. I was please to hear that someone with as much experience/success as you’ve had would find value in such an exercise.
Jim,
I really liked the preview of the 37 seconds book. The more photographers I talk to the more I realize that it is important to doing personal projects, just so you can stay sane and remember why is it that you got into photography in the first place.
I enjoyed the photos from your road trip, especially this one:
http://www.prophotolife.com/highway61/source/060529_jt_5181.htm
I didn’t look very far into your ‘photo a day’ entries yet.
My wife and I are planning on moving to Arizona in a year. Route 66 will be quite accessible to us as it goes through Flagstaff. We’ll have to plan a road trip when we get there.
For your “Photo a Day” assignment, what did you do when you ran out of ideas?
On some of the days I ran out of ideas, well, I’ll be honest: I just shot crappy photos. The good news is that was important, too, to be okay with it and to learn how to work around the mental blocks.
Approaching it as an exercise is what kept me going. And I realize now I didn’t make it clear: I didn’t shoot every single day but the goal was to post a new image every single day. Learning to edit better was just as important as the shooting aspect…if I had a great day of shooting it was worth posting a few days in a row on it, I felt.
Great idea! I am not a professional photographer but I love taking pictures. I shall try and start something like that to motivate me to take more images and learn from that.
Would help having a same theme along the serie to keep up with the work?
I was about to ask… have you been cheating by publishing images on different days even though taken on one day? i guess the answer is that if you do so the reason of this exercise would vanish.
I am finding it quite a challange to do the Kitten Picture of the Day (KPOD)
I thought when I started… well, hell, how hard can this be?
It can be very hard.
Especially when you try to keep the standard high. Sure, I could just put up snaps, but I want more.
If you are interested..
http://www.flickr.com/groups/765593@N20/
Thanks Jim. I wasn’t sure how one would be able to get out every day and shoot. I usually have my camera with me all the time and I’m fortunate that I have a few different types of environments that I’m in every day. I drive through and live in the country, which is the source of most of my inspiration. I work in a city and hope to get out and do some shooting in soon. Perhaps a City Photo blog entry on a weekly basis would keep me going.
Bill, those KPODs are amazing. You’re sitting on a best-selling book there…seriously.
Debora, in Bill’s case a theme to the work is central to the idea. For what I did there was purposely no theme. I just wanted to create for a year and then look back at the photos to see what themes emerged on their own.
And for my personal approach I definitely did “cheat”, it wasn’t about shooting every day as much as publishing a new photo every day. In my case I think shooting every single day would have become counterproductive. I wanted to more fully explore results from a particularly productive day of shooting, publishing multiple photos if I liked where they were going.
That’s an interesting take on the photo-a-day idea. I think that might actually be more feasible for most people than taking a “good” photo a day project might be. You still have the deadline, but do give yourself some wiggle room for those inconvient situations that life throws at you.
Even as a dedicated photographer I find it hard to get out and take a photo every day, let alone a decent one. Setting a goal like this is difficult at best and I commend you for it even if you didn’t go out and take photos every day. I’ll be very interested if you decide to try something similar in the future, maybe you could try and inspire a group of your readers to do do it with you and see what we can come up with. Could be fun.
The idea of editing a photo a day sounds promising; edits tend to get rushed when you’ve got a dozen photos to publish at once.
I’d also be interested to hear how you got the effect in your Forgotten America photos…
I also tackled this photo-a-day project idea, and was successful with it for about two months. It was a good learning curve for me and taught me to quickly learn my new camera. It was incredibly difficult to balance my regular old life with shooting, choosing and posting a decent pic while trying to come up with new and creative ideas every day. The remnants can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kats_pics/sets/72157604041747965/
I think if I’m to revive this project I will shoot a pic a day but only post them at the end of the week on a Monday to Sunday sort of time schedule.
Kat, I really like your project photos, it’s a great visual diary. Your summer time camping photos really take me there.
I agree, Danny, a photo a day project would be fun. Feel free to share any more ideas you may have, I’ll put something together.
there are several groups in flickr dedicated to the 365 or 52 or even 12… meaning one photo per day, week, month
some of them have themes, some are pretty stupid, you get what you pay for on flickr I find.
but, yeah there are people doing it.
I’ve been doing photo-a-week project since November 2004. Taking one photograph each week is something that I can do without whole lot of effort and as such, I am not really forced to push my boundaries.
On a photo-a-day project, things depend heavily on what kind of rules you put for yourself. Do you have to press the shutter, post process and publish it in a same day or do you do it in someother fashion.
I did photo-a-day project from Nov 21, 2005 to Nov 28, 2006. My rules were that I had to press shutter at least once a day, but I had no rules for post processing and publishing dates.
I have to admit that there were couple days, when I had not taken one single photograph and I was getting sleepy and had to make something in a rush.
On other days, I got bunch of nice ones, but I only used best one and others were left into backlog that kept on growing bigger and bigger.
If/when I will do another photo-a-day project, it is going to be more like seven pictures from a week or 30 photographs from a month.
I really enjoyed your photos from your trip down Highway 61. I did parts of that trip twice last year: once from Indianapolis to Memphis for a conference, and once from Indianapolis to New Orleans (and Houston) — after I missed my train! I needed to be in New Orleans the next day, so I just punched “New Orleans” in my navigation, got some coffee and started driving. It turned out to be one of the most special trips I’ve ever taken…I explored, snapped photos, and took my time. I got to see the things I would never have seen if I had travelled via train or plane. I can’t wait to do it again.
I often think I’m not taking enough photos. In between client shoots, it’s very patchy. I find myself stimied by self-imposed limitations: there are no clouds in the sky today. It’s noon. The lighting sucks. I’ve exhausted my home enviroment. Etc. Not all the time, mind you, but I run into this on occasion. I think I need to try at least a week of a photo-a-day.
I do like to shoot film though, when not shooting for work. The photo-a-day concept would have to be a little flexible as a result. Shoot one a day, but not necessarily edit and/or post one per day.
Perhaps tomorrow is the day to start. I’ve got film in my Ricoh Super Ricohflex, and I have to head downtown for some business. Might be a good place/time to start.
Ok, I’ll do it. Commiting to a week.
Thanks for the kick in the pants.
Arabella, that’s a great story. The scenery really changes on the way from Indy to New Orleans, doesn’t it? Is there anywhere to see some of your road trip photos?
I’ll be joining you soon to shoot for some personal goals, Matt. The Ricohflex sounds cool. Hey, that’s a very nice take on the Tinker Tubes diffuser on your blog. I hope readers jump there to take a look…
Thanks for the plug, Jim.
Well a week later and I was able to successfully shoot at least one shot a day (usually more). I got some results that were worth it, which I’ve posted part of. The rest I’m saving for a second installment. Thanks again for the post. It was a worthy effort, even though it was only for a week. I’m sure I’ll do it again soon!
Right on, Matt, the “kiss” shot is great!
You are spot on! I did the same “project” and I became a little obsessed with carrying the camera around (with my partner saying “please put that ****ing camera away” quite a lot)
I learnt SO much about taking pictures.
You can see all 392 pictures via my blog - the entry you need is:
http://thestateofthenationuk.blogspot.com/2008/11/selling-pictures-or-not-selling-to-be.html
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