6 posts tagged “project365”
If this is your first year long picture-a-day project you might just have noticed that the task seemed to get much more difficult over the last few days. What's going on?
Remembering that project365 is a distance race not a sprint let's return to my favorite project365-as-a-marathon analogy. When you run a marathon there is so much preparation and effort in just getting to the start-line that, by the time you are warmed up and are hanging out in a that huge crowd waiting for the gun to fire it feels like a rock concert audience waiting for the band to come on – there is so much anticipation and nervous energy. When the race starts and that crowd first starts to jog and then gradually gains momentum you are running on pure adrenaline. For the first couple of miles you are at the heart of a huge crowd with spectators cheering the sight of thousands of people in motion, cameras capturing the event for local TV news and papers and you are just swept along, literally, in the moment. It can take a couple of miles for the pack to start to spread out and for you to find some space at which point the magnitude of what lies ahead can be daunting – you can go from feeling in the middle of the best party ever to feeling very alone in no time flat.
For the first mile or two you just run on the energy of the crowd but once that passes it's time to do the real work of the race; you're not really going to feel that camaraderie and adrenaline until the last couple of miles and, in this moment, the end of the race is a distant dream. It's time to find your space and your pace, to start listening to your body, tune out discomfort and concentrate on those things that will let you achieve your goals. Personally, I start to try to ignore the runners around me; if I get caught up in a group going to fast I will hit the wall – if I hang out with people going too slow I will get frustrated. I either look down at my feet and the ground for a mile or so or look over the heads of the other runners. I start to get a little chant, rhythm or song going in my head to run along to and I concentrate on form. At this point you are on your own.
Very similar things happen in the typical project365 group. January 1st the gun is fired and we're off! Many of us having been waiting for a long time for the project to begin and we're full of creative energy and good intentions. The first few days you can't wait to take and post your shots. You go to your project365 communities on Flickr and everyone is firing on all cylinders, posting amazing work and it's just too easy. Your fellow project365ers spend surplus energy commenting on tens of pictures everyday and participating in discussions and sub-projects; each image you post gets more views, comments and favorites than you are used to – perhaps a picture or two hits 'explore' – now we're motoring!
But, around day 20 you look around and the pack is spreading and thinning. A few participants have already fallen by the wayside, many are finding it hard to fit their picture-a-day into their busy lives. The free time of the holidays is gone – we're back to work with nothing interesting to shoot, certainly nothing explore-worthy. Your average views-per-image are half what they were last week so no one would notice if we just quit. What's the point of going on? It would be so easy to just stop; what are you going to do?
Like a marathon, it's time to do the work. You have to stop worrying about the others around you and get back to basics. Find a pace that works for you this means finding times that best work for you for making pictures and posting them. Make it as easy as possible for you to succeed – that means taking a camera everywhere so that there are no missed opportunities or excuses for not taking a shot. That means having a regular time for processing images and posting them – maybe over coffee when you first get up, during a coffee break at work or last thing before you go to bed, just make it a routine.
Pace means just plodding on forward one step at a time relentlessly. If you're running this race so your friends can see you, forget it. It's Sunday morning and they're all still in bed. Your fellow runners aren't really paying much attention to you, they have their own demons to wrestle with over the next 20-something miles. You have to run this race for you – to find out what you are capable of. Post your daily picture even if you are not totally happy with it, even if it is not half as good as the one you posted yesterday, or your buddy posted yesterday, even if it will get only 2 views and have no chance of hitting Explore. Just post picture after picture, relentlessly.
So get on pace, check your form, forget about the rest of the pack and do the work. You know you can make it to the end of this if you want to enough and you are relentless.
PS - Project 365 is not exactly the same as a New Year's resolution but they share a lot of the same characteristics. Ceratainly this post I read today seems to apply: Do You Make These 7 Mistakes When Trying to Keep Your New Year’s Resolution?
"So after the initial enthusiasm wanes it may not feel as that much fun anymore. It’s sort of enthusiasm backlash. This is the homeostasis kicking in within your mind (no matter if the goal/habit etc. is actually very positive for you). It’s a resistance to change to keep the system (you) stable. If you are simply aware of this being what it is - rather than a signal to give up - you can persevere, be patient and keep going more easily."
So you have enlisted in project365 - how hard can it be? All you have to do is pick up your camera once a day. How long does it take to make a picture? 1/125 of a second on average? That's only 1/10800000th of your day. This should be easy.
I hate those blogs that apologize for not writing or being away. Even more I hate the excuses they proffer to explain their absence; usually something to do with being too busy or real life getting in the way of blogging. Are we d-list bloggers so egocentric as to think that we are missed when we don't write? As a reader of blogs, it's not like I'm going to run out of things to read if even half of the blogs and podcasts I subscribe to stop publishing tomorrow. My RSS reader cup would still runneth over.
I am, therefore, not going to apologize for not having written anything here lately. I am not going to make up excuses for neglecting my photoblog, or for phoning in my project 365 pictures, or for not commenting on my contacts on Flickr. My real world responsibilities were no heavier than usual - I just didn't feel like it. I do not presume I was missed nor am I fishing for comments to the contrary. Let's just say for want of a better explanation, that my creative muse left me for a while.
So what do you do when you consider yourself a creative person but you don't feel like doing anything creative? I save what little creative juice I have to keep creative commitments that are important to me, in this case my photo-a-day project for this year. Even when I didn't feel like it I took a shot each day that I wasn't ashamed of. If this meant reshooting things I'd already shot, so be it. If it meant taking pictures in the same, comfortable vein day after day, then I just rolled with it. There are times to push yourself and there are times to acknowledge your limitations and energy.
In the project365 group I am part of in Flickr we have seen a number of committed members drop out recently. Either they were pushing themselves to try to make an exceptional image everyday that stood a good chance of making explore which is exhausting, or they just tired of the project and it was either to stop than go on. In running parlance we call it 'hitting the wall', or 'bonking', or 'the bear jumping on your back'. Somewhere around mile 18 to 21 of a marathon there's a danger that you will have the overwhelming urge to stop running; this might be because you're trying too hard, or not trying hard enough, or your not well enough prepared. If you want to finish enough you will break through the wall and keep going - if you don't want it enough you'll either walk it in or stop and get a ride in from the sop wagon. If you can dig deep and run it in you're a real runner no matter what your time.
A similar analogy could apply to any long term artistic endeavor. If you want it enough and you can find the energy to keep going even when you want to stop you might learn something about yourself, your talent, your limitations and your strengths. There are mental tricks runners can employ to break through the wall; you try to divert yourself. Instead of counting steps, watching out for mile markers and all the mental arithmetic that goes into working out if you can still make your target time you can sing songs in your head that match the tempo of your steps. You can lift up your head and look around yourself instead of looking inside and down at your feet. You can talk to your peers around you. Before you know it mile 21 is behind you and the finish line is achievable again.
While my muse was MIA I picked up a guitar for the first time in forever and tried to learn something new. I sat down with the books of photographers who I love. I went to the movies. I talked to other photographers about, what else?, photography. My muse didn't come running back, banging on the door begging me to take her back but I can feel her in the house again. Artistically speaking, I'm not going to qualify for Boston but I will run it in.
Here you find me at mile 7 of my Picture a Day documented as a marathon - I break through the magic 100th picture:
Continuing my Picture-A-Day as a marathon metaphor, with today's image I have just completed mile two (the first month of pictures).
I'm still not going to pretend it's easy but I am starting to get into something of a stride. I'm letting go of the pressure to create a 'significant' image everyday. That's just too much stress. I don't think that I'm cheating, but if I am not in the mood to shoot, or it has got late, I am using the old fall-back of table top studio work and am shooting toys or my camera collection as a way to get through another PAD day and to keep to the project.
I've also found I'm pacing myself. Some lunchtimes I go for a walk and to bag that day's picture. If I find what I need in the first few minutes but later see something else visually interesting I may take a shot or two but I also mentally file away the location of the subject and the time of day and weather that will suit it best so that I can return on another, less target-rich day. Some of the images I have made are just blah but at least I made a picture that day. Of that, I am proud. I am also confident that with a bit of effort I can keep going a few more miles.
Escaping the metaphor and addressing real road races for a moment, I wish I was as confident about completing the actual half-marathon that I signed up for this coming Sunday. I haven't done nearly enough training miles to get a decent time so this race will just be a matter of survival for me and I will count anything under two hours a victory.
To anyone else competing in real or metaphorical races at the moment, good luck to you. The following are my PAD images for mile two (only 21 and a bit miles left to go!):
I'm trying to equate the Picture A Day (PAD) project I've embarked on with some other large project I've accomplished, like running a marathon. Actually, I've committed to running another one of those this year (it's been quite a while since my last one) but the race isn't until December so I have plenty of time to get injured before then.
A marathon is 26 and a bit miles (the bit can be the killer). This means that 1 marathon mile equates approximately to two weeks in PAD days. Wow - I've got a long way to go and I've only finished mile one! I wish I could say that it has been easy this far but that would be a lie. If a runner is hurting at mile one of a marathon then they are in a lot of trouble and a world of pain. Let's hope the marathon/photography metaphor isn't that accurate then.
On the plus side, I have managed to keep going this far without resorting to anything too desperate or cheating. I'm quite proud of some of the pictures although it is so much easier to do on those days when you've got nothing better to do than take pictures. On those days when you have to work, pickup groceries, exercise, empty the dish-washer, pay bills the end of the day can sneak up on you. Then it's a case of trying to find something close at hand that you can grab a shot of.
To anyone else trying a PAD project this year good luck. To anyone brave enough to admit they have resolutions for the New Year, particularly if they are photo related, all the very best to you too. Below, my first mile in pictures:
