Hello again! Thank you for all your sweet comments, it's nice to read that I'm not the only one who enjoys photo projects. There are so many fun ideas out there, I hope you will share your completed projects with me, you can contact me through my personal blog. I also hope you're not getting tired of photo projects because I have plenty more to share with you. Today we've got a cool project based on a blog called 3191: A Year of Mornings. It's something I hadn't heard about, but co-founder of WCS Elizabeth mentioned she'd like to do something like it for her photo project contribution. We were able to rope fellow co-founder Marnie into the project and I left them to go at it (not that these two busy ladies don't have enough things WCS related to do...). 3191 is an interesting concept. Two friends that live 3191 miles apart but manage to connect through daily photos taken and shared. Their venture has turned into two books, one focusing on morning and the other on evening. Their current project can be viewed here: 3191 Miles Apart.
And now, without further ado, here is the Elizabeth and Marnie version, and their own comments.
Marnie: Agreeing to a daily photo assignment with Elizabeth is like being a back up singer taking center stage with the rock star. Elizabeth is rocking her second year of project 365. Last year I made it 3 days before I forgot. This year, nearly 2 weeks. I know, eh? Seriously, daily projects are apparently outside of my skillset. But when Elizabeth, queen of all things daily, asks, you say yes in an effort to be a better person. Maybe with an assignment and commitment to someone other than just myself it might happen??
So I said yes, and began. And except for a few days where I painted (the walls in my house) from sun up til sun down, I did quite well. Especially considering my May to-do list. I was very proud of myself. I tried to scrapbook the photos as I went along to add incentive to not forget to take my pictures. (You may see most of the layouts on my blog). I was happy to get some regular shots of the plain nothingness of our mornings. I am home with my littles and we are slow and sleepy in the morning. I found myself taking many many pictures of my sleepers. I also realized that I forget to do a lot of the daily stuff for Nigel, which means some mornings were spent hurrying like crazy to complete projects like teacher appreciation and science puppets. I really must get more organized.
As for photography, I was so happy to not forget to take my pictures, that I didn't spend as much time as I wanted learning new stuff and getting better at my craft.
And when I saw Elizabeth's photos? Well, I swooned and thought of all the artistic things I should have concentrated on. Hmm. Maybe my kids are my art?? It certainly isn't that I love mine any more than she does hers. teehee!
Oh, and I was so happy to have succeeded, that I took my 31 photos and put them together in a photobook (a current obsession). I made one with journaling and then realized I wanted the photos to speak for themselves, so I redid it. Without words. You know what they say? A picture's already worth a thousand.
Click here to view Marnie's book.
Elizabeth: Marnie and I decided to try out the daily morning photo project featured in 3191: A Year of Mornings, a collaboration between Maria Alexandra Vettese and Stephanie Congdon Barnes. The only guidelines we made for each other: take a photo in the morning, preferably before 10 am if possible. We decided not to stipulate whether or not the photos would be of people or inanimate objects, indoors or outdoors. I love the variety in the final product! It's interesting to me that while we didn't specify what kinds of photos we were going to take ahead of time, Marnie's focused more on portraits and mine were more detail-oriented shots, to help set the context of the morning. If we were to do this project in another month of another year, no doubt the results would be a little different. (i.e. I am far more detail/surroundings oriented in the busy months of May and December, whereas July might be a slower month filled with more time outside focused on child shenanigans. Or whatever.)When I did Project 365 in 2008, I tried very hard to stay updated within three days during the entire year, and usually pushed myself to write journaling to pair with my photo the same day I took it. In this project, we didn't keep journaling, and we didn't pair our photos at the conclusion of each day; we're fairly sure that a few of our matches have the dates mixed up, but in the end, that probably doesn't matter because it was still a really fun way to connect two friends separated by a lot of miles (1,290 in our case). But with a project that includes journaling with each photo, I can't emphasize enough how important it is to get in the habit of pairing photo and words the same day if at all possible. It's too easy to get behind and give up otherwise!
As the organizer of this week's projects, I have loved getting into the minds of the WCS team members who helped me out. They each offer little hints on how to succeed at each project, but the part I've loved the best is their honesty. It just makes me happy that I know these ladies, if not in real life, through their projects.
And this isn't really photography based, but it is friend and art based, and since we're doing the friend thing, I thought I'd share it here as well. It just inspires me. My friend Paula sent it to me. It's a blog called twodaysinjuly.com and it's two friends who each post once a month, thus the two days in july. It also has a deeper meaning, but I'll let you read about it. You should check it out.
I have one other project I've done in the past to share before I finish today. It happened completely by accident. My husband and I took a trip to Switzerland in 2007 and when we first arrived, we took a walk through Old Town Zurich. I started taking pictures of doors, they don't have doors like this in my hometown! The more doors I took photos of, the more cool ones I started noticing. The fun part of this project was my husband really got into it as well. He even got a picture of himself taking a picture of a mirrored door. It was one of those bonding things that make a marriage enjoyable. I made a layout of a few of the most interesting ones.
Photo Challenges are a great way to get outside your box. To have someone tell you to try something new can teach you things about yourself. They aren't projects per se, but you could group the results together and call it a project. A few fun sites include:
I'll be taking a break on Thursday, but be sure to check back for give.away.day. and then Friday is chock full of photo project goodness again, you won't want to miss out!
