To Argentina & Beyond

Inspired by the posts about the 2008 366 Photo Challenge posts by Dean Shareski and Alec Couros, I’ve decided to take up the 365 photo challenge for 2009.

My NikonD40, which I absolutely adore, has been phased out. You can imagine my panic when I returned home to New Zealand for Christmas to have the camera store confirm that my camera’s auto-focus motor was indeed kaput, and both the 18mm-55mm and 55mm-200mm lenses also had a faulty auto-focus. To add further distress to the situation, my camera was just 3 weeks out of it’s one year warranty!! On the plus side, the 55-200mm lens was purchased a few months after the camera so it is still under warranty. My local camera shop could not guarantee that my camera would be fixed before I returned to Bangkok, and since the D40 is no longer being made, I made a snap decision to purchase the last NikonD40 in the shop (and in Hawkes Bay!!). That’s how much I love this particular camera. It’s a dream to shoot photos with. I will sell my other camera when it has been repaired – or I might just keep it in New Zealand as a back up!! It just seems a fitting tribute to my NikonD40 to complete the 365 photo challenge during 2009. I’d also like to improve my photography skills and practise the tips and techniques that I’m learning from one of my favourite photography blog, Digital Photography School.

Here’s a few tips for taking part in Project 365 from my other favourite photography blog, Photojojo.

# Bring Your Camera Everywhere
Yes, everywhere. Get in the habit. Grocery stores, restaurants, parties, work, and school. Going to a movie theatre? Snap a pic of the flick with your phone–there are photo-ops everywhere. If you have one of those tiny tiny cameras, you have no excuse not to have it in your pocket all the time. And if you don’t? Camera phones are a great substitute.

# Make Posting Easy
You can install blog software like Movable Type or WordPress on your own site and create an entry for each photo, but for true ease of use, try a photo sharing site. Flickr will let you post a week’s worth of photos in 2 minutes flat, and fotolog and Photoblog.com are geared toward a photo-a-day workflow. Making it fast and easy means you’re much more likely to do it.

# Vary Your Themes
Try to capture the day’s events in a single photo. Perform photographic experiments. Take a photo of someone new you meet, something you ate for the first time, or something you just learned how to do. Take a photo of something that made you smile. And don’t forget to take a photo of yourself at least once a month so you can remember how you’ve changed, too.

# Tell a Story
Use your blog entry, or your photo description, to explain what’s going on in each day’s photograph. How good did that dinner taste? What made you want to take a photo of that stranger? It’ll help you remember down the road, and it gives friends following along a better appreciation of why you took the photo you did. You don’t need to write a lot, just enough to add some color.

# Don’t Stop, No Matter What
This is perhaps the most important tip of all. You will get tired of taking a photo every single day. Some days, you will consider giving up. Don’t. The end result is worth the effort. Remind yourself why you wanted to do it in first place.

There will be times you’ll think there’s nothing interesting left to take a photo of, and times you’ll think you didn’t do anything exciting enough to take a photo of. There’s always a great photo to be made.

Get out of the house and take a walk. Or stay inside and look around. Take a photo of something important to you. Take a photo of the inside of your house so you can see how your taste has changed over the years. Take a photo of anything, just don’t stop.

N.b. It helps if you’ve told your friends about the project and asked them to follow along. Their encouragement will keep you going!

# Post early, post often
Plan on going through and posting your photos at least once a week so you don’t get backlogged and feel overwhelmed. Ideally, post every day or two. Again, spend the time up front to make sure it’s quick and easy to post. It’ll make all the difference.

Dean Shareski also shares his tips for completing the 365 photo challenge based on his experience doing the challenge in 2008.

My friend Matt Montagne has also decided to do the 365 photo challenge this year too. Here’s a link to his beginning post about it.

There are a number of 365 Photo groups on flickr already. Just search “groups” using the keywords 365 2009. I’ve joined the edtech365/2009 group especially for those involved in education and/or technology

Here’s my effort so far – today is Day 5