Last day of 365

And here we are, the end of 2009. A year ago, I laid out my plan to take at least one photo a day through the year as a means to stimulate the creative process and get back to doing something I loved. At the end of that project, I'd call it a success. I found myself looking at things differently, trying to see if there was a photo there I wanted to hold onto. I took my time a little more, not rushing from point A to point B as much, even telling myself it was OK to be five minutes late if it meant taking a few shots on my way there. And I stayed true to my own few, loose rules: At least one shot, no matter the quality, taken between the hours of midnight and 11:59 p.m. Only once did I miss that window, technically. During a day of organizing the basement, I knew I wanted to document my efforts, and though I figured I'd take a shot of the workbench, I forgot to do it within the 24 hours. Although the physical image was taken the following day, the mental image was in my head within the window. There was also one day when the upload to the computer failed and the images were lost somewhere in between camera and hard drive. So although I took the required photo that day, the image that represents it was taken early the next morning as I left work. So in a way, it still fits, because the day, for me, had not yet ended.

Most of my images from the year were taken with the Canon Powershot point-and-shoot that I bought last December almost exclusively with this project in mind. Although I love the handy P&S for convenience in carrying with me everyday to work, as a result I don't take the time to craft shots the way many of us do with SLRs. So while I won't be making a conscious effort to shoot photos everyday in 2010, I hope that one of the lasting effects from this past year is that I use my SLR a bit more. I also hope to be regularly active with this blog, posting a few times a week, perhaps using weekly photo themes as inspiration. And I'd really like to scan in my film images, so perhaps that will be next year's resolution, at least photo-wise: Scan a group -- a roll, a place, a session, a theme -- per week. We'll see how that goes.

Happy 2010 to all. Time to party.