Robs 365 for 2013 / 2014

buzzlightweight

buzzlightweight

buzzlightweight

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Ok so i have decided to do a mad thing and jump into the deep end.....

I have never done anything like this or even contemplated it so i think im in for a rough ride.

I will begin this on July 1st, taking 365 images, one a day, is very daunting!

Im doing this to try and find my spark again which i feel i am losing. I am a big fan of PP so expect some photoshop wizardry.

I expect there will be a lot of head banging, lol

Please CC my images, tell me if they are **** and how i can improve them.

I will be posting to my Flickr and i have started a Blog so feel free to follow me there, i always follow back.

Im interested in speed lighting so if you have any insight please feel free to throw a dog a bone ;)
 
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I'm doing one at the moment, I wont get to the full 365 though, not putting that kind of pressure on myself. I tend to take a lot of pictures in batches though, rather than one a day, which helps.
 
buzzlightweight said:
i thought the point in a 365 was to take a photo a day NOT take a photo and up it when ever you want?
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I don't think there are any hard and fast rules! Your right it is common for people to take a picture each day and upload it but I see no reason not to do it another way particularly if you heavily into creative PP as it then doesn't really matter if your using a pic taken today or a pic taken last week.

For me the whole 365 thing has become a bit of a fad, but if it works for you then go for it. I'm looking forward to seeing your results and if you manage to reiscover your mojo.
 
Yeah, I found trying to take a picture everyday started to get counter productive quite quickly. Theres no end of 365 threads on TP and the amount of shots of their cats/kids/dogs in there or a tree in their back garden etc was just meh.

I'd rather upload quality over quantity and see how many I actually get done in a year. As for doing them in a batch, well when I go out and do star shots at night, I tend to get several good shots. I'm not going to only use one just because the others weren't taken on a seperate day. Each to their own though.
 
No better way to turn something fun into a chore than foring yourself to do it everyday. Photography is about being creative, I don't see forcing yourself to take a photo will improve that? I would rather take a single prize winning photo in a year than 365 of the nearest things to hand.

Still, if it works for you then good luck, not easy and sometimes it is nice to have a challenge!
 
Like everyone says, there are pros and cons to this.

Best way to learn is to take photos, in theory the more you take, the faster you get better at it. However you also need to step back and analyse the photo, criticise it so you can improve on it next time round. If you just take and take without the subsequent approach then it would almost become a pointless exercise.

That is the pros of doing a 365, as long as you review and take a step back and look at your work then it would at least give it a meaning. Hopefully by the end of the year you will see a noticeable improvement over time.

The con would be that you should only show people your best work, it would be very difficult for an average Joe who does a 9-5 office job to get enough opportunity and/or time to get shots that are varied enough to warrant a 365, unless you are in such a position like being a backstage photographer of a world tour for U2/Taylor Swift or full access to daily lives of the White House or travelling round the world.

A lot of people fall into the trap of taking photographs of their pet (badly), their kids (badly), inanimate objects (badly) with no thought process going into any one of them.

If you are going to do that then the way to make it creative is if you have a theme - http://maddieonthings.com/ But you would need to be very creative to begin with, if you end up taking endless photos of your dog sleeping in various parts of the house and nothing else then you might as well stop after the first week.

In short - don't take photographs for the sake of it, if that photo doesn't work and your gut feeling tell you it doesn't work then don't take it and move on. That is your own critique working in action and you are actually learning by not taking the photo. Think before you click.
 
As above really.

Most 365's end up being photo's of your dinner, cans of pop or your kids and descend into mediocrity.

So unless you are feeling really creative I'd go for something a little less stressful and more meaningful.

Having said that, I do follow someone on Flickr who constantly does 365 and his work is not only brilliantly amusing but very creative. Link below if you are interested.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottmacbride/
 
D.P. said:
No better way to turn something fun into a chore than foring yourself to do it everyday. Photography is about being creative, I don't see forcing yourself to take a photo will improve that? I would rather take a single prize winning photo in a year than 365 of the nearest things to hand.

Still, if it works for you then good luck, not easy and sometimes it is nice to have a challenge!
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Raymond Lin said:
Like everyone says, there are pros and cons to this.

Best way to learn is to take photos, in theory the more you take, the faster you get better at it. However you also need to step back and analyse the photo, criticise it so you can improve on it next time round. If you just take and take without the subsequent approach then it would almost become a pointless exercise.

That is the pros of doing a 365, as long as you review and take a step back and look at your work then it would at least give it a meaning. Hopefully by the end of the year you will see a noticeable improvement over time.

The con would be that you should only show people your best work, it would be very difficult for an average Joe who does a 9-5 office job to get enough opportunity and/or time to get shots that are varied enough to warrant a 365, unless you are in such a position like being a backstage photographer of a world tour for U2/Taylor Swift or full access to daily lives of the White House or travelling round the world.

A lot of people fall into the trap of taking photographs of their pet (badly), their kids (badly), inanimate objects (badly) with no thought process going into any one of them.

If you are going to do that then the way to make it creative is if you have a theme - http://maddieonthings.com/ But you would need to be very creative to begin with, if you end up taking endless photos of your dog sleeping in various parts of the house and nothing else then you might as well stop after the first week.

In short - don't take photographs for the sake of it, if that photo doesn't work and your gut feeling tell you it doesn't work then don't take it and move on. That is your own critique working in action and you are actually learning by not taking the photo. Think before you click.
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ManCuBuS said:
As above really.

Most 365's end up being photo's of your dinner, cans of pop or your kids and descend into mediocrity.

So unless you are feeling really creative I'd go for something a little less stressful and more meaningful.

Having said that, I do follow someone on Flickr who constantly does 365 and his work is not only brilliantly amusing but very creative. Link below if you are interested.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottmacbride/
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I suppose it is what you make of it.............. just don't judge me when i drop out! :)
 
D.P. said:
No better way to turn something fun into a chore than foring yourself to do it everyday. Photography is about being creative, I don't see forcing yourself to take a photo will improve that? I would rather take a single prize winning photo in a year than 365 of the nearest things to hand.

Still, if it works for you then good luck, not easy and sometimes it is nice to have a challenge!
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I too find this sort of thing VERY painful to do and stressful. It totally ruined photography for me for a long time, especially when I did the TP photo 52. That taught me a valuable lesson which was to only ever take photos at your own pace and of things you want to. A 365 would almost certainly pee me off to the point that I'd walk away from it all again.
 
I actually think one of the better exercises out there is to have to put away 1-2 quid for every single photo you take in a certain period. Every time you take a photo, even a quick test shot to check the histograms, note it down and tally them all up. Transfer all of this money into a savings account.

This way you are forced to think and focus for every shot. Plan ahead, analyze the scene, take care of all the settings, rally think about the composition first and get everything right looking through the viewfinder. Think about the exposure, what will the camera meter do, will it over expose and if so you should already dial in some EC.
This way you become really critical of what you take a photo of, is the subject interesting, is the lighting good, shall I come back tomorrow at sunrise?

The end result is you produce a small set of high quality photographs that need minimal editing and pruning. You don't have to spend ages PPing but enjoy the photos.

After the exercise (duration up to you, 1-3 months seems about right) have a look at how much money you saved up and spend as you wish - house deposit, rainy day fun, charity donation, or buy new camera gear.



This is basically what happened in the world of film- it cost money to take an expsoure, and it would soon add up. Film wasn't cheap and processing was even more so. You rarely went out and shot a 200 photo set (professionals aside) - you had to make each photo count.


Another similar idea is to plan to only take a single photo on a trip. E.g., you go into the city with your camera and are allowed only a single photo, what will it be? This is more restrictive and doesn't really have the same benefits.



Really, forcing yourself to take lots of photos is goo for beginners to grasp techniques but then you really need to be aiming to improve quality and impact. Still, it does pay for advanced togs to push their abilities and try new things. SO one idea is to take photos of things you never normally do. E..g, if you have never done any portraits then try that out for a few months. If you don't shoot landscape then get in the habit of planning weekend trips and waking an hour before sunrise, if you don't shoot sports see if there are any events in your area and get along to them.
 
On the merits of improving your photography I can't comment - what do I know :)

However it does sound like good basis for telling a good story in pictures. The story about the challenge itself. And that I like!
 
I'm doing one. I started on Jan 1st and tomorrow is the mid-point of the year for it. (by my calculations. I would echo some of the good and bad points as mentioned above.
1) It appears it is one of the hardest things you can do project wise, especially if you are a 9-5 job and don't have a huge amount of time to create shots in the evening.

2) Some days are better than others, I try and be creative as I can, but I'm not actually sure I am that creative in the first place!

3) Personally I decided to do it to try and improve my skills with my camera and also my thought of what makes a shot.

4) You will want to give up! I've had that feeling about ten times already and wondered why the hell I chose a 365 instead of a 12 or 52. Or even just carried on taking pics as I
did before.

5) I feel sometimes I get a shot I am really happy with and some days I end up taking a filler shot just to get the picture of the day.

6) I now always have a camera of some sort with me, from SLR, compact to mobile phone.

7) Some days I go out (or stay in) just to look for one shot and that's it, others I go out and I take a load on a walkabout and then pick one for that day.

It has made me think of different styles, but there are more I want to look at, I am thinking of doing a 100 strangers as part of my 365 too, so I could make life really difficult for myself!

Feel free to take a look at mine so far. My Project 365 for 2013

Finally I would strongly advise that you PLAN IT - (I haven't done a lot of and still need too) It will help if you have ideas in a notebook or diary, some people pick a week of themes to help. I could probably start that for the 2nd half of the year. If I was to start again, it wouldn't be decided at 11:30pm on January 1st and I would put more thought into it. But I am definately going to try and finish this one as I am 50% of the way there.

EDIT :
D.P. said:
I actually think one of the better exercises out there is to have to put away 1-2 quid for every single photo you take in a certain period. Every time you take a photo, even a quick test shot to check the histograms, note it down and tally them all up. Transfer all of this money into a savings account.
SNIP - Other great advice
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I am going to start doing this as it will make me even more critical of my own shots. Thanks for this :)
 
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D.P. said:
I actually think one of the better exercises out there is to have to put away 1-2 quid for every single photo you take in a certain period. Every time you take a photo, even a quick test shot to check the histograms, note it down and tally them all up. Transfer all of this money into a savings account.
Click to expand...

I'd never take a picture I'm too tight!
 
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