POTD will make you realized...

[Jen D]

Originally Posted by dugarner

I'm there with you, Suzanne. I have two kids, I live in a tiny town, my house is not decorated at all, we do the same thing every day . . . so my challenge was in the post-processing. I managed to make some pretty dull, boring pictures interesting with skills I improved over the year. Cropping, rotating, different blend modes. One of my favorites for the year was a horribly-lit snapshot of my daughter. I couldn't fix the lighting, the background was horrendous. it was slightly blurry and because my camera loves noise, it looked like she was standing in a digital snowstorm. I almost threw it out, until I converted it to black & white, and then clipped it to a brushed mask to hide the background. All of a sudden, it was a very good shot, and one of my favorites.

So to encourage you, just take the pictures every day. Don't think about whether you "already have one of those," or if it's exciting enough. It won't matter in the end. I couldn't use the majority of the list from GIYBS, nor could I use most from Becky Higgins' list two years ago, I just don't have access to many of those things. But they helped get me thinking.

One side effect of doing the project last year was in desperate search for subjects, I fell in love with our landscape here, making trips at least twice a week to our local NWR. I learned to love watching for birds and now I see them everywhere. My life is better because of it.

Just in your signature, I see all sorts of possibilities. You're a book lover. Take a picture each day for a week of your seven favorite books. Journal about why you love them, so that your great-grandchildren will know you better.

You're a crafter. Take a picture each day for a week of different crafts, crafting implements, supplies, where you do your crafting. Do you do it in a room? By the TV? With your family? After they're in bed? Do you give them away? (Ha! Your crafts, not your family!) There are all sorts of possibilities.

You've got a blue belt in MMA (I'm a huge MMA fan, by the way!). That's unusual for a woman. Take a picture of your equipment, or where you train, tell the stories of how you got interested. Are you into jujitsu? Boxing style? Are you more of a wrestler? Have you competed?

Just trying to help you out. Stay encouraged. It shouldn't be stressful. When I ran out of inspiration, I just shrugged my shoulders and took pictures of squirrels and lizards. And eventually the spark hit again.

Something will work for you---just don't worry about it. Worrying makes it no fun.

Sarah

Fantastic ideas Sarah... must be because you have done this project before =)

[suzanne]

Originally Posted by dugarner

I'm there with you, Suzanne. I have two kids, I live in a tiny town, my house is not decorated at all, we do the same thing every day . . . so my challenge was in the post-processing. I managed to make some pretty dull, boring pictures interesting with skills I improved over the year. Cropping, rotating, different blend modes. One of my favorites for the year was a horribly-lit snapshot of my daughter. I couldn't fix the lighting, the background was horrendous. it was slightly blurry and because my camera loves noise, it looked like she was standing in a digital snowstorm. I almost threw it out, until I converted it to black & white, and then clipped it to a brushed mask to hide the background. All of a sudden, it was a very good shot, and one of my favorites.

So to encourage you, just take the pictures every day. Don't think about whether you "already have one of those," or if it's exciting enough. It won't matter in the end. I couldn't use the majority of the list from GIYBS, nor could I use most from Becky Higgins' list two years ago, I just don't have access to many of those things. But they helped get me thinking.

One side effect of doing the project last year was in desperate search for subjects, I fell in love with our landscape here, making trips at least twice a week to our local NWR. I learned to love watching for birds and now I see them everywhere. My life is better because of it.

Just in your signature, I see all sorts of possibilities. You're a book lover. Take a picture each day for a week of your seven favorite books. Journal about why you love them, so that your great-grandchildren will know you better.

You're a crafter. Take a picture each day for a week of different crafts, crafting implements, supplies, where you do your crafting. Do you do it in a room? By the TV? With your family? After they're in bed? Do you give them away? (Ha! Your crafts, not your family!) There are all sorts of possibilities.

You've got a blue belt in MMA (I'm a huge MMA fan, by the way!). That's unusual for a woman. Take a picture of your equipment, or where you train, tell the stories of how you got interested. Are you into jujitsu? Boxing style? Are you more of a wrestler? Have you competed?

Just trying to help you out. Stay encouraged. It shouldn't be stressful. When I ran out of inspiration, I just shrugged my shoulders and took pictures of squirrels and lizards. And eventually the spark hit again.

Something will work for you---just don't worry about it. Worrying makes it no fun.

Sarah

Ooh thanks Sarah. I had not even thought about these ideas.

[iUma]

Ok, we all know what I do for a day job, right? As a licensed psychologist in private practice in two states for 25 years I have learned a thing or two.
I say do what you want and if you don't WANT to do 365 quit now. It takes determination. I know. My year ended in May...some day in May 2009...It's MAy, it's May.... So if you can't figure it out maybe you should turn to another fun part of what we do.

I personally have benefitted greatly from all the answers here and am truly encouraged in my new pursuit. But - no, did I say but ?? I meant AND I am starting again and hope to do better this year.

[BrittanyLane]

Just thought I'd pop in and say that I, too, am trying this out this year and am actually pretty excited about the task of finding things to photograph. Everyone's given some great advice, but I just want to add that you should take another look at Katrina's Give It Your Best Shot. There are SO MANY things on that list that we all have... toothbrush, pens, pencils, door handles! It might help you out!

[Squeak]

So much great advice on this thread! Like Debi, I've decided to take the photos and do the journaling, and if everything ends up in a book, yay! If not, then hopefully I've learned something about my life and my camera! If you get stuck for photo ideas, how about pretending you're visiting an exotic land and you'll never, ever be able to go back? Wouldn't you want to photograph everything? Your room, your breakfast cereal, the tree on the front lawn? Sarah mentioned taking pictures of squirrels and lizards when she ran out of inspiration and I had to laugh, 'cause on the few vacations I've taken to other countries, I photographed squirrels and lizards! I also photographed the hotel rooms, the bath towels, what we ate for dinner, the bus we took downtown...everything, even the most mundane things, become special when you travel, so maybe think of each day as a vacation in a country to which you'll never be able to go back to, except in photos. The flower pot, the door knob, the laundry pile all become a record of that country where you've been...

[sam ellis]

One of the things we had to do for a whole week when I was in Photography College was take 1 x 36 spool ( yes it was in the film days) of certain things.

Throw a hoola hoop onto the grass. Take 36 unique photos of this hoop/grass.
Take ONE book - take 36 unique photos of the book.
Put your camera next to your bed. When u wake up take 36 photos between your bed and the loo.

and so on for 7 days.

It was VERY hard but definitely made you think and look at the same "boring" subject for a long time before you clicked the shutter.

Photography is an art - no real rules - and fun.

[carollee]

Or think of the most ordinary subjects and take them from extraordinary angles. Show what life is like in the year 2010, what a treasure this will be, from cooking implements to the garden lawnmower, supermarket shopping dockets, petrol bowser prices, maybe each week take a photograph of a newspaper headline, just to remember something amazing that happened in the world that week. You might think it boring now, but years from now, for those to look at our books, it's shows what life is like in the year whatever. Can you imagine what a treasure this would be if we had this exact same book but that our great grandparents did when they were our age? It would be fabulous. Except of course they didn't have digi scrapping! ;-)

[LauraBean]

OK, I thought of a couple other things that kept it fresh for me last year.

1. My iPhone! I used quite a few phone photos in 2009. The iPhone camera is decent, and there are tons of apps with filters and such to make really ordinary photos quirky and fun. My phone also has a much wider angle lens than I have on my dSLR, so that meant more options. You may not have an iPhone, but a camera phone or some other kind of fun, little camera might inject some spice and life into things when you're feeling stale with your usual camera. A new lens will do the same thing--I rented one for a week in the fall and had new ways to play with my dSLR for that time.

2. Post Processing. Some days I had a pretty dull photo of my dinner preparation (near the end of the day, I'd think, Yikes! No photo yet! and as I'd be making dinner...). I tried for an interesting angle, but often I had more fun with the post processing. I use Aperture, but play with an ordinary shot in whatever software you own, and you might find it becomes more interesting. Add a texture, go sepia, high contrast black & white, whatever. I wasn't making masterpieces, but I was having fun, which kept me going.

[whatnext]

i really laughed when i read your "boring life" comment. when i was doing a 25th anniversary retrospective for my husband some years ago, as i scrapped i realized: wow. we really are boring! i kept having to make pages of years where all there was to scrap was home remodeling and the inevitable trip to the Outer Banks!

[iUma]

Oh, could I just add...check Katrina's blog for a recent post about what to do with your photos. Start putting them together for a scrap page (365 Project) or just a grid on Shutterfly. Thats what I am doing so it will be easy to print when I am done and they have their year end sale PLUS you get to see it taking shape as it goes along.
FUN. It's about FUN.

[readstoomuch]

I am crazy about all of the creative responses to this thread! I love the 402 topics that Katrina gave us in her "Give it Your Best Shot" tutorial . . . well, since I'm not potty training anyone I'm not sure that I will be using number 291! (But, don't rule it out, K. . . . I'm creatively thinking about it.)

I think that I am going to mark them off one by one as I take photos using GIYBS as my inspiration!!!

The 365 is really rocking this year. I LOVE the new monthly photo challenge on the DD blog . . . I'm obsessively looking for NEW everywhere I go since it hit the blog yesterday.

[sweetpeony]

Not sure I have anything to add, other than: been there, miss that. After a while, I wasn't going for the shot, I was trying to figure it out, get it better, grow a bit.