Project365 : One month down, eleven to go
by Sunhay on February 1, 2012“No sir, I had no idea that I wasn’t allowed to take photos in this building. I’ll just err… leave”
If you’ve been keeping up to date with my blogs, site, and/or twitter, then you’ll know that I’ve been spending time everyday working on Project365. Project365, for those of you that don’t know, is the act of taking a photo a day for 365 days. It’s a fairly loose challenge in that the challenger can take photos of anything, in anyway, as long as they complete their quota of a photo a day.
It’s been a month now since I’ve begun the challenge and thought that it wouldn’t hurt to write a blog post on the topic. This way, rather then having to explain it time after time to everyone who asks why I take so many photos, I can just point them to this blog post (though, they’ll likely not bother visiting).
I’ve never documented an extended period of my life before, so the idea of documenting a year of my life is really… well, neat. It’ll be cool to see how I progress over time as a person, and it also provides a medium in which I can reflect on the various decisions that I’ve made. At the end of it all, I cant wait to see what kind of crazy visualizations I can create (programmatically generated collages!?).
In terms of how the first month of the whole challenge has been, well, it’s been pretty decent. A lot of the interns that I know have already come to expect me randomly pulling out my phone and taking photos throughout the day. Almost everyday so far, I’ve gathered 4–6 photos and have had to choose one from the crop to represent that day. In some cases, I’ve even opted to post two images rather then just one. It’s to be expected that since I am working five days a week, I may forget to take a photo until later in the night when I remind myself (iPhone alarm, chyea!).
“Oh damn, I should really take a photo soon” (Sunny, On days with strange photos)
Even though the challenge has a loose set of rules, here are a few guidelines that I try to stick to,
No Photoshopping: Every photo must be unaltered, though resizing is fine.
Maximum 2 photos: I can post at most two photos. Only one of them is considered that day’s photo.
No Posting Deadline: I can upload photoblog posts whenever I want to. This is just to keep me sane :O
It’s not that many, but If I come up with any new guidelines, I’ll be sure to include it in the next Project365 update.
Even though it’s only been a month, there are also a few things that I feel I need to improve on. I don’t really want to get into detail, but if they persist, I’ll be sure to include it in the next update.
For anyone who is interested in photoblogs, I highly reccommend that you check out http://photooftheday.hughcrawford.com/. It is the documentation of Jamie Livingston’s “A Photo A Day” obsession. It contains over 6000 photos, about 18 years of his life. I warn you however, that the last 100 photos of the last year (1997) are quite saddening, so beware! I reccommend checking out at least the first 50 of 1979, and the last 100 of 1997. You won’t regret it.
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By taking a photo a day, I also hope to naturally change my short term decision making technique, to that of an anecdote-based decision making* technique (I’m not sure of the correct terms). The idea is that, whenever I’m faced with a decision to make, I’ll lean towards the choice that may lead to a better experience or anecdote. This technique may end up giving me a great new story but a horrible experience, or it might even end up giving a bad story, but enjoyable experience (lol?). I guess I will find out soon enough, if it fails, I’ll just go back to the normal old way of things.
A trivial example of how a photo-a-day brings this change out is that, rather then staying at home in the evening, I’ll begin to attend new events because I know I need to take a photo. This hopefully leads to better photos, as well as greater experiences (as long as I have fun right?).
* I can’t remember where I read about this particular method of decision making, but I’m really curious about what sort of adventures I’ll get myself dragged into. Hopefully nothing too dangerous!
Introduction
My name is Sunny Klair and I am a student at the University of Waterloo where I study Computer Science. I have far too many hobbies and interests, which is one of the reasons I created this site. It will hopefully help me maintain some state of organization.
The blog posts contained herein will often be random in topic with a high probability of nonsensicality. You have been warned.
