A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

Foto Friday

Foto Friday guest post: Getting through a Project 365

A 365 Project gives you the chance to see the world in a different way, every day. (photo by guest poster Mike Davis)

As many of you know, I’ve embarked on the 365 — well, 366 — project for the second time. This time is because it’s a Leap Year and I thought it would be cool to take a photo for 366 days in a row. I succeeded in 2010 doing a 365 and swore I’d never do it again. 

Here I am two years later — doing it again.

I met Mike online at about the same time I was doing my first 365. He, too, was doing one. And as a fellow geocacher, he wanted to join our 365 group. He did and also succeeded in the 365. Since then, I’ve grown to consider Mike one of my better friends on the ‘Net. He’s a stellar photographer and his feeds are fun to watch. 

Here’s the thing about Mike, though — he hasn’t stopped taking a photo a day since that 2010 project. That means, in just 365 projects, he’s taken photos for nearly 750 straight days. I’m willing to bet if he looks back on it all, it’s probably longer as I seem to remember looking at his Flickr and seeing he was taking a photo a day before “officially” starting a 365. 

There are people with longer streaks out there, to be sure. But each year, Mike has said he was going to stop. But kept clicking away. Below is his look at this incredible streak, along with some of his best — and worst — images over that time. 

Enjoy!

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I’ll admit it — I take a lot of photos.

I’ve been into photography since my dad gave me a Kodak 110 camera for Christmas when I was about 7 years old. When digital came of age, I was ready to jump in. I started out with one of those great Sony Mavicas that used 3.5-inch floppy disc as storage and I was hooked. My first boy was born in 2000 and that increased my exposure count exponentially.  A friend introduced me to Flickr in November of 2004 and, Katy bar the door, I’ve been going gangbusters ever since.

Throughout my time on Flickr I’ve engaged in various projects ranging from DILOs (Day in the Life Of), 12-of-12s, photo walks, etc., as ways of improving. Not even necessarily the quality of my photos, but improving the way I look at the world around me. I had never attempted an actual Project 365, but the idea intrigued me.

I had twice in the past done one of sorts. I documented each of my boys when they turned 7, taking a daily photo of them for a year. My travel schedule kept me from taking all 365 so I enlisted the help of my wife and other family members. We missed a day or two but I achieved what I had set out to do.

Here’s a few of my earlier projects:

With few warm-up projects under my belt, in 2010 I began taking a photo a day for my first Project 365. I wondered if I could ever complete it and never dreamed that almost 750 days later, I’d still be snapping a daily photo. There are certainly folks who have been at this much longer than I, but it’s quite a feat for me.

I’ve enjoyed going back and seeing what I was up to over the last couple of years. It’s an interesting way to journal my activities. In looking back, I can see that not every photo was golden and I recall waking in a panic more than once thinking that I had forgotten to take a photo the previous day, only to find something on the phone or on another camera.

It's not always the best image for the day, but it works when needed!

In the category of uninteresting photos, I found several instances where the only photo I had was of my room number at the hotel. You see, I have a tendency to forget what my room number is, especially when in a period of heavy travel. So I try to always snap a quick picture of my hotel door so I can find my way home.

Not the best photo but a photo nonetheless.

Another popular but no so interesting subject in my stream is food.

It’s handy. I eat every day. Sometimes more than once. There are many times I’ve taken a photo for Yelp or Foodly or some other food-based social community but there are some on there of what we’ve cooked at home.

Food can always make for an excellent 365 photo of the day.

Then, some images are just plain uninteresting because I just needed a photo.

Though uninteresting, this one filled a day when needed.

Seriously, what was I thinking?

The photo to the right isn’t the only one. I have another similar one.

Speaking of interesting, I took a look at my photos tagged ‘Proj365’ to see what Flickr found as the most and the least interesting photos.

I’d agree with the most interesting. It was taken in December 2010 during the Winter Slice Lunar Eclipse and is a merge of several photos of the moon in its different stages of eclipse.

Flickr decided this was the most interesting of Mike's 365 photos.

The least interesting?

It was not the cable sticking out of the ground, though it should be. Instead, it’s a sunset photo taken with Instagram while out on an evening run in January 2011.

Least interesting? According to Flickr, that is so.

The absolute worst came on August 17, 2010.

I just happened to snap a photo of my dentist’s door as I was walking in. It’s blurry. It’s total crap. But it was the photo I took all day. In the end, I was happy to have it.

One of Mike's past 365 photos was when he was close to a president.

There was also a day where all I had was a photo of a cup in the hotel room. Fortunately, my sister had take a picture of me on the golf course and I decided that it would count as I had taken a photo.

Within the period of nearly 750 photos, I’ve traveled to many places, had fantastic experiences and have done many different things.

I’ve shared a living room with a president.

And photographed someone who turned out to be a future Heisman Trophy winner.

I have run in marathons and half-marathons.

I’ve been from the West Coast to the East Coast and many points in between.

I’ve been to the snowy Rocky Mountains, and to the sandy beaches of Turks and Caicos.

And I have the photographs to prove it.

If you think a Project 365 is something you’d like to try, I say what are you waiting for? Pick up the camera and start shooting. It doesn’t have to be January 1 – December 31. Just start shooting.

The best piece of advice I can offer you is to take some sort of picture in the first part of your day. Any picture will do. Use the camera on your phone or whatever. When the day has gotten away from you and you are sitting down to upload your photos, you will be glad you did.

Also, apps such as Hipstamatic and Instagram (on iPhones) can make a boring phone camera photo into a more interesting image, if you don’t overdo it. If a Project 365 seems like a daunting task, try a Project 52 as a warm up. If you are like me, you’ll find yourself taking a photo every day, anyway.

I highlighted some of my less-interesting photos earlier. I’d like to leave you with a few that I am proud of and hope you enjoy them as well. Good luck in your attempt and keep on clicking.

January 23, 2011

August 29, 2010

September 22, 2010

Mike’s Flickr sets for his 365 Projects:

If you are on Flickr, add Mike as a contact. You can also follow him on Twitter. 

Foto Friday: Feeling hip with hipstamatic

No, I won't be throwing aside the DSLR. But Hipstamatic makes the "regular" photos real fun again. (Lucifer VI Lens, BlacKeys B+W Film)

I feel like I’m getting hipper by the day.

You see, it’s all about photographs with me. I love having a cell phone that does the things it’s supposed to do — you know, make phone calls or text. But with the iPhone, there are so many other great things. As I’ve posted before, the photographs it can take are really incredible.

(Side note — people with the iTouch or other things that can download Apple apps can use all of this, too).

I recently started looking at Hipstamatic again. I downloaded it shortly after getting the iPhone, but wasn’t too interested. I figured I had wasted the $2 I spend on it and chalked it up to a learning experience.

John S Lens, DC Film

With the recent release of Hiptamatic Disposable (more on that later in the post), my interest raised again.

I’m glad it did.

For those of you who like the old plastic/toy film cameras — or just the look of old images, Hipstamatic is a perfect fit. With the beauty of having some iTunes gift cards still on my account, I splurged and purchased the bulk of the add-on packages for the app. That means, for this wonderful “film” camera, I have 10 lenses, 13 types of “film” and eight different flashes. Now, remember that the app itself comes with a good variety of lenses/film/flashes, so one doesn’t have to purchase the additional items to really enjoy the app. I just so happened to have some iTunes money remaining and was very curious about all the additional things.

It also appears that there are other special packages — lenses, films, cases etc. Maybe these come out for special occasions or were used once and now gone. Hopefully they’ll be back because I’d like to keep building my Hipstamatic collection as I think this will be an app I use quite often in many different situations.

Helga Viking Lens, Float Film

And after doing some research, it looks as though some things — once gone — are gone for good. And it stinks, because two of the most recent ones were Winter 2010 and December 2010. Both look like awesome additions (especially the Winter 2010 one) and I can’t get ’em. Argh!

One of the coolest things with this app is you can shake it when open and it will give you random mixes of film/lenses. So you can have all sorts of wild combinations of everything.

Over the past few days, I have tested things a little. I’ve shaken the camera, used certain combos on purpose and generally just wanted to see what this app could do.

Chunky Lens, Blanko Noir Film

I like it.

I own a Holga, which is a plastic film camera. It does a lot of the stuff that this app does. But the best part about the app is that it’s all digital and I don’t have to pay for expensive processing on 120 film! (Though I do have several rolls of 120 I need to get developed from the Holga). After messing around with this app, I realize now I can get the same setup as with the Holga — and with many more options.

Now I realize many people still love film. They love that feel and everything that goes along with it. I’m fine with that. But I don’t like it anymore. I can’t afford every aspect of it. It adds up. I can snap hundreds of photos now and delete what I don’t need. When I use my DSLR, I still mess with settings as I would on a film SLR. The difference? I’m not wasting film. I can see right away what I need to do to switch things around. I do miss some things about film, specifically black and white in the darkroom. I loved the smell of the chemicals and being able to do different things during the process.

Chunky Lens, Pistil Film

For those who have worked in a dark room, can’t you still somewhat smell the D-76 developer or picture the stop bath stopping the developing? All under that red light?

But, that was then. This is now. And seeing something instantaneously is what I like now.

Anyway, back to what was being discussed.

This app takes away all of that, but at the same time gives you one heck of a film look — in color and black and white. The films are very cool and give you different feels. Same with the lenses. Eventually, I’ll test the flashes out a little bit, too.

The app, much like these old cameras, is a bit quirky. You can line something up and the image will come off as off-centered (note the mailboxes image). There are little things to learn as you go along with the app, which makes it even more fun.

The best, however, is that you can get instant satisfaction, unlike the day of the film. I won’t like — I used to love the rush of picking up a roll of film — but as things are in this day and age, this is just as much fun. And if you really want prints of these images, you can order them through the Hipstamatic website, or find a place where you can take the digital file and have it done somewhere else.

Lucifer VI Lens, BlacKeys B+W Film

Hipstamatic Disposable

As I noted earlier in this post, there’s another Hipstamatic product that I have been really enjoying. In fact, it’s this product that made me get back into Hipstamatic.

The basis behind this app is a disposable camera. But, it gives you an even more realistic feel of a disposable camera — you can’t see the images until you finish the roll (24 exposures). Once you finish the roll, you will see them all.

Incredibly cool.

Molson -- as taken with Hipstamatic Disposable (taken with the D-Fault camera)

What’s even better is that there’s many different types of cameras, too. You get three free when you get the app (which, for the record, is free). There are seven more you can purchase. Of those seven, four give you unlimited use of the camera for $.99. The other three have different price levels — 9 cameras (at 24 exposures each) for $.99, 36 cameras for $1.99 or 99 cameras for $3.99.

Each of the cameras do something different — and give you a different look. I have a few going right now. One of the cameras is a black-and-white camera, which is cool.

The best part of this camera?

You can share. That means you and others can all be using the camera at the same time. Once the camera is finished, you and all the others get access to the camera and get all the images. How cool is that? As of now, however, it’s based on your Facebook profile.

Someone posted to the Hipstamatic Disposable page on Facebook, however, and asked if there would be a time when others can be invited without using Facebook and someone from the company responded that they were working on that. That is excellent news because I keep my Facebook king of low-key and only really add people I know in real life. To know that I might be able to share photos with someone via Twitter or e-mail or something is excellent news. I hope it happens soon as this app is one I’m really liking a lot.

I have a few other cameras going at this time and hope to eventually have it all set up so I can share cameras with people throughout the US and world. I think it would be a lot of fun to see things through the eyes of other people and this app really is giving us a chance. Kudos to Hipstamatic on this app and I hope it continues to grow.

Some external links to check out (added after initial post):

Note: Foto Friday is a new feature I plan to do each week. It’s not going to be just a photo, it’s going to be one or more of my favorite photos of the week, with explanations or stories behind them. The images might come from my DSLR or my iPhone and some other app. With getting back into the 366 project this year, I’ll be taking photos more, so hopefully I’ll have more images to share. Foto Friday also might be something else to do with photography — a guest post, perhaps, or something like this post about a product or something else.

I used “Foto” as a throwback to the old Fotomat drive-thru developing booths. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy this new feature at A ‘lil HooHaa!

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