Category: Art

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That’s a wrap on the One a Day project! 366 photos, one leap year’s worth. Well, not quite 366, we’ll get to that in a moment…

Here are a few parting thoughts about this little project:

  • Missing photos: It’s not easy for me to take an even somewhat interesting picture every day. On 28 occasions, I had nothing. That’s an 8% failure rate, not great. There are several other days were I forgot and ended up shooting something lame just to have a photo.
  • Breaking rules: I didn’t stick to the one and only one rule for this project (“The photo needs to have been taken that day–no stockpiling”). There were about 3 or 4 days in the last month or so where I posted something taken on a different day rather than posting nothing. In the end, I decided something was better than nothing.
  • Neighborhood borders are fuzzy: The neighborhood is listed in many of these pictures. There were several occasions when I wasn’t sure exactly which neighborhood I was in. This Extremely Detailed Map of New York City Neighborhoods is invaluable when one isn’t quite sure where one neighborhood starts and another begins. It might not be perfect, but I tend to agree on the consensus there.
  • Things change fast: One of the inspirations I cited at the onset of this project was a set of photos taken in London in the 50s and 60s. Even in the short life of this project, large and small things are changing. One of my favorites (so far) is below.
Two photographs showing the signage from the Perelman Performing Arts Center in two different locations. On August 9, 2023 (left photo) it is lower than August 31. 2023 (right photo).

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The end of the year has proven to be a difficult time for me to take a picture a day, as evidenced by all of those footage not found squares on One a Day. I thought about declaring bankruptcy today since I had fallen so far behind and had little to post. Instead, I opted to forge ahead. As of today, I need less than 100 pictures to finish the project–I’ll try to finish strong.

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This is just a quick check-in on the One a Day Project. I was just catching up on over a week’s worth of photos when I realized the halfway point has been passed. This seems like a good time to reflect.

Two things come to mind immediately:

  • It’s a challenge to take an interesting photo every day
  • I need to expand my daily routine

There are some real clunkers in this library of photos, not to mention several days where I didn’t even manage to get one shot (more on that later). Most of these photos, good bad or otherwise are taken around maybe three locations. All of which are within a narrow range of home and work.

I wasn’t sure what to do about the days when I had absolutely nothing. There are a couple days where it’s obvious that I just snapped something around the apartment at the end of the day. There are several days when I forgot to do even that. In order to stick to my one rule, I could either skip those days altogether, or highlight my failure with a placeholder image. I’ve chosen the latter.

I need to post about 167 more photos to finish up this project. While doing so, I’ll really try to get something marginally interesting daily while expanding my range.

Wish me luck…

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Yesterday, I launched One a Day wherein I will post one photo per day for a year. There is only one rule: The photo needs to have been taken that day–no stockpiling. You may think that you’ve seen this done before, but assure you that this is a totally original idea.

Now, launch makes it sound like I spent more than an hour knocking together a rudimentary, barely usable site. Sure, I could go the easy route and post on one of the many social networks on which I already have an account. But, in the words of Tina Turner: We never, ever do nothing nice and easy. Besides, we all know, the hard part isn’t making a site or uploading an image–its taking a picture day after day after day.

Why bother? Well, I was inspired by two things recently. First was a large collection of black & white images a friend showed me. His father had taken them in the 70s and 80s. While the subject matter was mostly day-to-day life in East Berlin, they were fascinating.

Second was A London Inheritance where, in a similar vein, he has a large collection of London photos from 1946-54 taken by his father. In a recent post he said “…the normal, everyday things that we take for granted, and are the things that will disappear and are worth a photo.”

This struck me because I take a lot for granted and tend to move through portions of my day with sort of tunnel vision. My hope is that this little project will help me broaden my field of vision a bit.

Wish me luck…