I love Flickr. Everyday on Flickr, I see photographs that truly blow my face off. I am literally blown away by the quality and quantity of inspiring photos on Flickr. I love the fact that I can share my photos and get feed back and meet cool people who are also sharing their photos.
Lately, I’ve wanted to push myself to take more creative shots and explore new lenses and formats including, lomography. I’ve been thinking of joining the 365 challenge on flickr for a while, but when i went and looked at the lengthy “group rules” for 365 days, I was like “uh, it has to be a self portrait”, then “if I miss a bunch of days they’ll boot me! Uh the pressure”, then “only one photo a day”, then I was like “lame, I should do my own thing”.
I don’t think expressing yourself should have rules or limits. Plus, if I had to take a self-portrait everyday, I’d go mental. Seriously, there are enough pictures of me on teh internets.
I guess I’m more interested in exploring my photography and creativity than the sides of my face with varying degrees of expression. Now, that doesn’t mean I won’t post mirror self-portraits of me and my camera or introspective shots of my feet with and without brightly coloured animal socks… It would be a crime to not share my favourite duck socks with the world. That’s why I’m calling it “Mostly 365”. See by adding mostly, you can get away with a lot.
If anyone is currently a 365er on flickr, add your set link to my comments. I’d love to see your photos! Even Especially the ones of your feet =P Also 365ers, what has your experience been like?
I’d love to see others take up my Mostly 365 challenge. If the 365 thing is a bit too much for you, then just try to take a shot every couple of days. Seek to create more cool stuff and share it with us!
Mitchell
June 26, 2008 at 3:30 PMI’m not photogenic enough for self portraits. Srsly.
Tom
June 26, 2008 at 3:31 PMPsst. I tried it once and failed. I can’t look at myself everyday let alone letting anyone else!
Teymur Madjderey
June 26, 2008 at 3:49 PMwell I started out of the idea to become a better photographer. a challenge. to be creative at least once a day. I also do add a little dialog to it to, as I use one (well rather four) object(s) and its going well so far. just hit day 116. and I can just say.. if you have the interest in improving your photography skills and challenge yourself creativly… go ahead and do a 365 days photo project.
and here the links to mine —> http://flickr.com/photos/icedsoul/sets/72157604034244154/
enjoy.
paul in Kirkland
June 26, 2008 at 3:49 PMThanks for the pointer to the flickr group, but I know what I look like so I won’t be doing daily portraits, thankyouverymuch.
You need to get rid of that stalker on flickr who’s basically putting graffiti on your photos :)
needcaffeine
June 26, 2008 at 4:15 PMfyi your ‘flickr’ link didn’t work, I think you meant
http://flickr.com/people/redpilotmedia
kristarella
June 26, 2008 at 4:24 PMI tried to start my own 365, with self imposed rules. I failed dismally at the time, so it’s postponed until it’s suitable for me to take a decent camera around with me. I tried using my phone for some stuff, but it was generally disappointing.
Mark
June 26, 2008 at 4:37 PMI’m doing a 365 on my Facebook. No rules, just 1 picture a day of whatever.
So far, so good.
(I’d place a link, but you have to be my friend to see the pictures..)
Darren
June 26, 2008 at 7:42 PMAll of this social media stuff (and I speak as longtime guilty culprit) can be pretty self-indulgent, but the whole 365-photos-of-myself-on-Flickr strikes me as the height of vanity. So, I applaud your taking photos of other stuff for a year.
Chris
June 26, 2008 at 7:54 PMWhat Mitchell and Tom said.
Besides, I look much better *behind* the camera.
Dan
June 27, 2008 at 1:13 AMWay to go Lisa!!!
/highfive
Roland Hulme
June 27, 2008 at 9:15 AMI have given your blog an award, because it’s great!
http://rolandhulme.blogspot.com/2008/06/thanking-academy.html
macanuck
June 27, 2008 at 11:43 AM“I don’t think expressing yourself should have rules or limits.”
Wow. No rules. No limits. Not one. Nada. Endless possibility.
But here’s the problems. As soon as you do something you are limiting yourself. Choose to take a picture, you are limiting your medium. It’s not a painting, or sculpture or song or poetry. And photography is all about what you *don’t* include in your photograph. By framing it this way, you can avoid getting that pile of dirty clothes in the shot, but again, you are limiting what is and what is not a part of the photograph.
The truest form of artistic expression, then, is to do nothing. At least, according to this argument.
Now, I know this isn’t what you mean, but that “Art without rules or limits” mantra has always got under my nerves and on my skin. There are always limits. There are always rules, even if you are the one that sets the limits and rules. In fact, most of the greatest art that has been produced is that which is created within a strict set of limits and rules. Rules that were usually set from without. By people other than the one creating the art.
Back in my college days I used to work at the student newspaper, which was entirely volunteer, except for a couple coordinators to look after editorial (me) and production (also me, though not at the same time).
We’d have lots of people who would walk in and say “I want to help out”, and I would say “what do you want to do” and they’d say “anything”. And you know what? Chances are they’d wind up doing nothing, because they had no walls, no structure to work within. But the people who’d come in and say “I’m really interested in learning how to write news stories”, they usually stuck around, because they had boundaries. They had a place to focus their energies.
One last story. There was this school once, that decided to tear down the fences around the school, because they didn’t want to have barriers. But as soon as the fences came down, they noticed that when children went out to play, they would stay bunched up around the school. They’d play in the playground next to the school, but the huge field that was also part of the property went unused. No kids out playing catch, or kicking a soccer ball.
But when they put the fences back up, the entire area got used. Because the kids had a shape to their area. They had a boundary.
So, mostly 365? Sure. But know that by trying to define not-rules, you are in fact laying limitations. Heck, why Flickr? “You’re limiting my artistic expression, man.” By adding mostly, you can indeed get away with a lot. But not with anything. And thus, limitations are established, structure is established, and form begins to rise from nothingness.
And it is good.
anonymouspoen01
June 27, 2008 at 2:19 PMmacanuck,
I hope your happy, you broke the CSS.
~anon.
kristarella
June 27, 2008 at 2:58 PMDang, I forgot to say earlier, I hope you’re not “literally blown away”, but then again you do have a MacBook Air… missed my opportunity though :P
Ryan Ray
June 28, 2008 at 8:28 PMinteresting idea, seems easy enough. I’ve decided to do a color a week similar to this, just once a week though. Pick a color for the week and photograph with that color in mind. Come by my site and join me
Cecilia
July 1, 2008 at 3:06 AMI think you may have wanted this group instead http://flickr.com/groups/project_365/
There are 2 “365” projects.. one’s a self-portrait one, and the other one is just a picture a day. http://photojojo.com/content/tutorials/project-365-take-a-photo-a-day/
Geoff
July 1, 2008 at 6:12 PMI started doing a Project 365 in 2007 but began missing a few days by May. Gave up by July.
Got a Canon 40D in November and figured the best way to justify the purchase, I figured I’d retry Project 365 in 2008.
I too didn’t want to take pictures of myself and didn’t let that stop me. So far, so good.
You can find my progress here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ggreene/sets/72157603603292796/
Clintus
July 11, 2008 at 4:49 AMI did it last year.
Here is my set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/clintus/sets/72157594582835050/
And here is a video I made with them: http://www.idoitdigital.com/2008/01/01/365-2007/
I didn’t see it being a problem. Most of the photos were taken with my phone. Some are boring, others are captured at some location. I loved it thought cause I can pick out certain days and say, I remember that day….