Time Is Flying By

I honestly cannot believe that 3 months has gone by. It feels like last week we all made our New Year's Resolutions, and it feels like yesterday we decided to forget about them. If you are reading this, and somehow are unaware of my current photography project, I set out to photograph and post every single day. At first, it was just for a month, now I raised that bar to 100 days.

As we end this first quarter of the year, I figured it would be a good time to give an update on how it is going, what I have learned so far, and my plan moving forward.

How It's Going

Overall, it has gone great. The key word being "overall". I would love to say that it is going as best as it could go and that every day is effortless, but that would be a lie. As many goals tend to go, when I first set out on this endeavor, it was easy. Everything was so new and refreshing where I was in a constant state of curiosity and exploration. I have never photographed in this way before, as I have been leaning into a lot of street and abstract styles, and every place just seemed to be bursting with photo opportunities. I would purposefully go to new scenic locations JUST to get my daily photo in. I still like to do this, but quickly realized that it just isn't possible every day. At the beginning of this quest, I loved it and it was easy. It wasn't until about 50 days in which I started hitting some real slumps.

Slumps

Doing this for 90 days, I definitely hit a few walls. The first slump I hit was that I didn't think of the logistics. This includes the time required, the money I may or may not spend, and my own energy. I had no regard for my own time and energy and that came to bite me in the ass later on as I almost quit a few times. Luckily, I realized where I went wrong and made some adjustments. Instead of feeling like I have to set aside dedicated time for this project, I just photographed during my day to day. This created a documentary approach I have grown to love since, and that I will continue to do. It just feels more authentic to me. I still go out and set dedicated time aside and go to specific locations JUST to photograph when I am able to, but I took that pressure off of myself to do this all the time.

Piggy backing off of that, another thing that caused some slumps is when my creative juices just weren't flowing. It is unreasonable to expect someone to be 100% at all times, and if my friend were trying to do something similar and were having problems with creativity, I would tell them this. I would tell them to lighten up on themselves because no one is expecting them to be at peak performance all the time. But this is myself I am talking about here, and unfortunately, I am a bit hard on myself. This caused a slump. I would tell myself to get out there and make the most amazing work I have ever made, no matter how I felt or what the day even gave me. Some days this tough love approach with myself worked and I got some cool images, other times my photos looked like crap because I was forcing it too much. Going through this slump I had to dig a little deep, give myself some grace, and just let creativity flow by letting go of expectations, by telling myself to just let the photos become what they need to become. When I did this, a more authentic voice began shining through the images.

Lastly, there were times when I would photograph in the same spot over and over and over. This is a great photographic challenge if you are setting out to do this specifically, but I was just doing it because I was either lazy or just didn't have the time or energy to go somewhere different. I think it is important to document the places you are most often, but when it was several days back to back in the same exact spot, it gets a little rough. Going through this, I realized I was "overmining" as it were, and I was leaving little photography opportunities behind. In experiencing this, I discovered I needed to do two things. First, change it up every now and then. If I couldn't go to a different scenic place, at least I could go to a different street or take a different path. Secondly, when I photograph a place for my daily photos, I don't need to get EVERY photo opportunity. I need to leave some that I think will be better in either different conditions, or one that I know I can come back to get different angles of.

So far, I have learned some lessons the easy way, and of course, I have learned some the hard way. I am happy that these are the problems I have had, and I look forward to the new problems I will discover. I have found that life is full of problems, and you know you are creating a better life for yourself when you are trading the problems you have now for better ones.

The Future

Let's wrap this up. Do I intend to continue photographing every day in the future? For the time being for sure, but I also don't have a reason to stop. Sure, I struggle some days to deliver, and other days I deliver at like 1:00 AM, but this gives me a purpose every day. Sure, it isn't my only purpose every day, but it gives me another reason to go out and live, to go out and document my life, to show that I exist. I also enjoy helping people with it along the way as I like to pop into shops and get the businesses photos without asking for anything in return. I feel like an active part of my community because I am out there with my camera, documenting the life around me, and other people see me as that guy as well. So far, its a good life to have.

I don't have any intentions of stopping. My next milestone of 100 days is just around the corner, and once I hit that, I will probably extend it to the rest of the year. In the meantime though, I will continue photographing, continue experiencing this life in the way I want to experience it, and I will be grateful that I get to be doing this until I can't.

So, to end this, I will say this: stay updated with it, watch with me how my style will change and grow, watch how I grow as an artist.