Wednesday, January 26, 2011

One man's opinion on 365 day photo projects.... and this chick's response.

I recently came across this commentary on 365 day photo projects.  It addresses some of the thoughts I've had about these pic-a-day projects:  http://www.chuqui.com/2011/01/why-i-dont-like-photo-a-day-projects/


I understand the pressure he is describing, which is why I've given myself the leeway - evident in this blog's title - of not HAVING to photograph something every single day.  Nonetheless, the goal of daily shooting does force me to look around my environment in a different way and to perhaps photograph things that I might not otherwise.  Certainly, few of the pics I've snapped so far are really representative of the types of subjects to which I am normally drawn (landscape).


On the other hand, I do "cheat" a lot... using my iPhone when there's nothing else at hand. But this is not necessarily a bad thing, either.  Professional photographer Chase Jarvis argues (to such an extent it's also the title of a book of his) The Best Camera is the One That's With You: http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2009/09/the-best-camera-iphone-app-book-community/ .  I am learning how to do more interesting things with my iPhone without having all the features an SLR camera affords.  Of course, the Hipstamatic and photofx apps I have make this a lot more fun!


Some people say that while they post every day on their 365 sites, they don't necessarily take the photo that day.  Instead they keep an "evergreen file" that they draw on when they haven't got a fresh photo.  I feel some ambivalence about this.  I feel like it's cheating just a little.  But these are early days; I might have to resort to that at some point.  (In the mean time, I'm still playing catch up with the pics I took before I got this blog up, so the chronology will be a bit jumbled for the next few days.)


So what do you think?

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