A shiny new year is about to descend upon us… and while I’m still working on my list of goals for the year, I know one goal I will keep for sure. My goal of Project 365.

Two years ago, I started “A Photo a Day,” otherwise known as Project 365. It was a challenge to say the least. There were days I “mailed it in” and there were days that I completely forgot. But I did it. And I now have a gorgeous 12×12 album (pictured above) documenting our year. When I started the project, I had no idea that it was going to be year of both beginnings (our sisters got engaged!) and ends (we said goodbye to our beloved greyhound, after a rough fight with cancer). I embarked on the project solely to improve my photography, but the payoff was so much greater than learning new skills and upping my game. I’m sure that some of my most beloved photos of the year would never exist if it hadn’t been for the project. That’s almost too sad to think about, right?!

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Why Project 365? When you are faced with taking a photo every. single. day. it improves your technical skills as well as your artistic eye. Trust me, after three photos of oranges in my Project 365… I knew I had to take a different viewpoint on it, and that is what pushed me to try out macro photography… which is now a passion of mine. I learned how to shoot quickly in manual. I learned how to use my external flash. As with most things, practice makes perfect! I also learned how to embrace spilled milk (literally) as a photographic opportunity rather than just another mess to clean up, and that was a big “aha” moment for me!

Project 365 taught me to slow down and appreciate what is around me. It taught me to embrace the little moments as well as the big ones. It taught me that even the painful, messy bits of life can be beautiful too.

I wasn’t really planning to do a P365 again this year… but somehow, when I wasn’t really paying attention, it happened. And looking back, I’m oh so happy that it did. While it was somewhat a “same old, same old” year… there were also a lot of BIG moments and events that I would have forgotten the little details of if it were not for this project. And soon, I will have another 12×12 book documenting the year. [Full disclosure: I almost abandoned the project during a rough patch in June, so I have some massive catching up to do on the laying out of the photos.] And I’m fully committed to doing Project 365 for 2013, especially since I hope it will be a big year for our family.

{A page from this year}

Now, while I go all out and not only photograph my days, but lay them out, not everyone needs to do this. And not everyone needs to have a fancy dSLR. You just need to commit to one photo a day. It can be shot with a dSLR, a point and shoot, or even your phone! I bet loads of you already take a photo a day on your phone, right?! You can post them in an album on Flickr or Facebook. You can scrapbook them into layouts. (I use pre-fabbed digital layout kits.) You can even just instagram them! [I suggest coming up with a hashtag that is all your own to make it easy to identify them. For example, you could do #lastname2013p365… or #username2013-365… you get the idea, right?!] Some people use daily prompts (you can find these by doing a web search for “project 365 prompts”) but I just try to pick something representative of my day. While I try to always use my “big girl” camera, there have definitely been days where my photo for the day has been captured on the i*Phone instead… and I just go with it. (Even though my Type-A personality and “perfectionist persona” may be silently screaming inside…) I remind myself that it’s about recording the memory and all is good.

I love looking back at the past two years, and seeing the progress in my photography. I love seeing little moments recorded, as well as the big things. As I flip through the photos, I literally see my boy grow up before me. (Yes, that is a little sad, but the sentimental part of me is so happy that the photos exist so I can see that progression.) The preface of each of my 2011 album reads: “365 days. 365 photos. Moments, memories, good times and bad. All captured here.” I plan to use that for every preface since really, that’s what this Project 365 is all about for me. I can’t wait to see what’s captured next year!

Sooo… who else is going to take on a Project 365 in 2013? 

 

Journals part 6 of 6

1. Journals for Moms by Mrs. Bee
2. Memory Keeping by Mrs. Chocolate
3. Creating a Keepsake Chest by Mrs. Deer
4. Making a Homemade Baby Book by Mrs. Confetti
5. Today, One Year Ago Today by Mrs. Stroller
6. Project 365 by Mrs. Paintbrush