One a Day

It’s something I need to work on, but I think I’m fond of shooting empty spaces.

Did you know that human DNA sequences are over 95% identical to chimpanzee sequences and around 50% identical to banana DNA sequences?  Which means if you go far enough back humans and bananas have a common ancestor.

“You are not special. You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We’re all part of the same compost heap. We’re all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”
–Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order.
Jean-Luc Goddard

There’s something profound about a dead tree in our living rooms.  I’m not sure what that is, and I’m not sure I wish to speculate further on it.  Happy Holiday’s, now get back to work.

 

What am I getting myself into?  This really kicked my butt last time.  It felt good to get it done, but the last month was like the last mile of a marathon.  Over the last year I considered doing this again, but it always just fell by the wayside.  Somewhere in the back of my mind I think I planned to do it on the first of the year.

It’s with some trepidation that I’m starting this up again.  I don’t want to mail any of this in, but I know there’s always going to be days where I can’t get out.  I don’t want to be aimless in my musings, but I also know I can’t do a direct project every day for a whole year.

This picture was taken on New Years Eve 2014.  Most of us make resolutions to be better people in the coming year.  Most of us drop off by January, but I think that’s ok.  It’s important to take stock in ourselves, appreciate our strengths and acknowledge our shortcomings.    It’s important to take those first few steps towards change.  It’s a long road and can be overwhelming when you take it all in at once.  The important thing is to just keep moving, and its ok to fall, it just depends on what you do after.

It’s hard not to feel a bit bipolar about this whole project.  Three hundred and sixty five days of photos without breaking stride.  I knew from the start that it would be hard as this is the second time I’ve attempted to do this.  Last time falling short by about 155 days.  There would be weeks where I would be in a rut, and hate everything I was doing.  A lot of the time I would feel like I had to do this and I got no joy out of it.  It felt like the artistic equivalent of hitting the wall.

This certainly felt like a marathon.

This is without a doubt one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.  The last few months I haven’t even felt the need to share these with other people.  I stopped posting my images to my Facebook page, and started making things in a vacuum.  And I think that really sapped my motivation.  Whether its a crowd or a single person it definitely doesn’t hurt to have someone cheering you along.

I was considering taking some time off as soon as I hit the year mark.  Part of me feels like I should, but after going through the past year of pictures there’s a louder parter of me telling me to keep going.  This doesn’t have to be a  finish line.  I think I want to make it a milestone.  I want to see how much further I can take this.  Start putting some direction into it.  Make the whole thing evolve into something more substantial.  There were a lot of photos from this past year that I’m really proud of.

Thanks for all the support, and lets keep this going another three hundred and sixty five days.

It’s all about the potted plant, but I do sort of wish someone walked by their window at some point.  Not in a creepy way though, just like compositionally.

Wanted to shoot a panoramic from the roof for a while now.  If I printed this out it would be 15 feet wide by 2 feet tall.  Getting to the end soon.

Forgot the sausage at the supermarket.  Decided to make the trip worthwhile.  People look at you strangely when you have a tripod on your shoulder late at night when its 20 degrees out.

Had my girlfriend help as an assistant for this one.  My only wish was that the stove was in another place.