On Resolutions
Originally published at BlackTabi Blog. You can comment here or there.
I used to spend a lot of time on photography. In high school, I had a fully manual Pentax K-1000 film camera that saw me through several levels of photography classes. When people ask “where were you when the 9-11 attacks happened?” I clearly remember that I was where I was every morning that year - in the school darkroom mixing chemicals and preparing to print photos.
Somewhere along the way, my photography fell off as I got busy with school, acquired several point and shoot digital cameras that far surpassed film in cost, flexibility, and ease of sharing. Something I haven’t blogged much about yet is the fact that I’m trying to get back into photography and increase my skills there. Back before our Peru trip last fall, I got a new shiny digital SLR camera, and last January I really dedicated myself to learning all the ins and outs. That lasted about a month. The photo challenges I was following disappeared, work got busy, and I was left with a basic understanding of how to use my camera in manual mode, but little else. I did get the opportunity to photograph several events this year, which was terrific fun, but the photo quality just isn’t where I’d like it to be.
This year I’m giving it another stab and resolving to spend more time and energy on improving my photography skills. Instead of relying on challenges posted for free by people on a website who may or may not have time to keep the photo lessons going, or attending one-day photo workshops that don’t have time to really go into detail, this year I decided to take several steps to actively work towards my goal.
First, I’m registered for an 8-week evening workshop called “Beginning Digital Photography” at the New England School of Photography. I imagine that I already know some of the material from my earlier photography training and experimentation, but I wanted something that would cover the basics in detail so I could really learn about the specifics of digital cameras (and get a throrough review of the stuff I haven’t thought about since owning a point and shoot). If it goes well, I plan to sign up for the advanced class in the next semester sometime this spring.
Next, I’m participating in Project 365. In its most basic form, this project just suggests that you spend a year taking at least one photo every day. The benefits are varied: not only do you spend a lot of time with your camera, so you get to know it very well and work on your photography, at the end of the year you also have a year’s worth of photos to look back on and remember where you were or what you were doing on each day. If you see me in person this year, expect to see a lot of me with camera in hand.
You might have noticed that this post doesn’t include photos. This is because I’ve set up a separate blog to capture my Project 365 pictures. While I plan to attempt at least one photo a day from now until December 31, I won’t be updating the blog daily (I decided that would lead to failure, since I’d spend a lot of time trying to upload photos and remembering to post to the blog instead of focusing on my camera, which is the real goal). Instead, my aim is to take photos every day and have a goal of uploading photos to the blog a few times a week. Often enough so that I have some accountability, but not so often that I’ll spend more time worrying about the blog than the photos. The 365 blog is geared mostly toward photos, so I plan to use it almost exclusively for posting project photos, and I might post text updates periodically about my progress here in addition to my normal blogging.
So, today is officially Day 1 of my 365 project. As luck would have it, my brothers gave me a pleasant head cold for Christmas and I spent most of the day under a blanket sleeping on the couch. Great start to a project, huh? Still, I got in several photos today, albeit rather less exciting than I’d hoped. This is mostly to say: expect more interesting photos in the future, but at least I got my Day 1 photo in!
You can follow along at the blog I’ve set up either by clicking the “Photos” tab at the top of this blog, or go directly to the blog’s URL: http://365.blacktabi.com/