Back in December, I started on a project that has been an albatross on my shoulders for few years, inspired by Jim Brandenberg’s Chased by the Light & Looking for the Summer, it inspired me to take on a similar project.
Early attempt from 2003
I Set out, attempting to take 60 quality pictures in 60 days. At the time, I considered myself a “nature photographer” and I put my photography into a tiny box. It was suffocating and an artistic dead end. I knew it, and I wanted to grow more as a photographer. At the time, shooting pictures daily as an experiment was a bit expensive. This was in the film photography days, and I didn’t have any spare money as a college student. Years would go by; after a few false starts, I gave up on the project and forgot about it. I tried it again once I stepped into the digital world once more, but I lost interest over time.
Finally, at the end of 2009, I my creativity was feeling a bit burned out and I was looking for something to re-ignite my fire. And so, I turned again to this project, determined to not only complete it, but to use it as a spring-board to push myself into new areas and to stop that horrible habit of seeing something interesting, but not feeling confident enough to take the time to stop and take a picture.
The project started off with a defined plan and simple goal:
- Take pictures all the time.
- Take pictures of any kind of subject.
- It’s all about building the skills, it’s not about the final 60 images.
- Don’t be scared to fail.
- Nurture a habit to take my camera wherever I go.
- Be bold and take pictures of things that I used to put off.
- Cultivate ideas for new projects.
- Put it up on flickr, and see what happens.
- Keeping shooting long after the 60 days are over.
If I didn’t lay out these kind of goals, I would have taken pictures just to “check off” the day’s image. I would become a lazy photographer and this whole project would be a waste of time. However, with these goals laid out, it would create a framework in my mind of what I wanted to accomplish each time I take a picture. I would constantly ask myself, “What can I do with this situation to make me a better photographer?” With that simple question; I would compose differently, I would stay with the subject longer, I would go places I didn’t usually go or try new techniques that I never got around to trying before. I would experiment a bit each day. It wasn’t all the time, but by pushing myself bit-by-bit whenever I could, the improvements would build on themselves as time went by.
The project was tough on me; some days were a hectic dash during last seconds before midnight. Other times I found myself hard pressed to edit the day down to a single image. When I started, I would spend the entire day with my mind open, and I would fire at whatever caught my eyes. As time went by, I would pre-visualize an image, and then go out, and hunt it down. Even during what I thought was a bad week or two, I still persisted, determined to finish.
It was fun, and a month has since passed and I find that I have accomplished everything I intended with the project. This has become a catalyst in ways that I never thought when I started. I’m shooting new subjects, I’m shooting places I usually don’t go to, and it has given me a good half-dozen ideas for projects that I am now in the process of working on. If you ever get the chance to give yourself an assignment like this; do it with the right motivation and it will pay off many time over.
Day 19, Gravel Road
view the complete set on my flicker stream
