Tuesday
Apr052011
Creating Daily
Tuesday, April 5, 2011 at 01:29AM 
I've been going through a bit of a slow period with my photography in the past couple of months. I have not been shooting much, and it's for various reasons. I'd like to just say I've been so busy with other things - but it's not just that. Sometimes we all go through periods when we're reevaluating our priorities when it comes to life, work, family, and art. That's been my case. I think I've been thinking too much.
To help me battle those daemons that have been forcing me to keep my camera down, I decided to start an exercise that got me into photography - taking photo a day (or more). Last time I did this, I lasted for about 140 days and gave up. It was too much stress. But my photography improved greatly during that time.
I have lots of people whose work I follow who post pictures every day - for example, Thomas Hawk, G Dan Mitchell, Jeremy Brooks. Some of them don't take pictures every day, but a common factor that unites their work is that they post pictures regularly.
I'd like to get back to making photography a bigger part of my life, namely, taking more pictures. And I'm not going to stress as much about the subject matter, or if I'm doing it for a project. The main purpose of this exercise would be to visually document my life.
The other day I was watching a documentary on big wave surfers. The big waves come very rarely for them - maybe one or two weekends during the whole winter, if that. One thing that caught my attention is that they have to stay in best shape regardless if they want to stay alive in those huge 100-foot waves. So they regularly hit the gym, and surf smaller waves.
I'm still trying to find projects to shoot that I'm passionate about. Some of these projects I can't work on regularly. I find no interest in shooting Big Sur during boring weather. I can't shoot some of the buildings I want to shoot because I'm not close to them. But this shouldn't stop me from going out and shooting other things, if just "to stay in shape," like these surfers.
I expect that most of these "photo a day" pictures will be taken with an iPhone, like the one above taken this afternoon in Utah. But it's more about the exercise, than the content One thing I'm learning - it's a lot easier to find creativity in our lives when we're working on creating something new every day, even if it's something as insignificant as pictures taken with an iPhone. At the same time, I'll continue to work on my other, more focused photography projects.
I started a blog "IM Daily" where I will post these images I take every day. Here is the link - http://im-daily.tumblr.com/ It has RSS feed if you wish to subscribe this way. Also, if you're on Instamatic, feel free to add me - my user name is "Ivan Makarov."
Not yet sure where this journey will take me, but I'm exited to start.
Reader Comments (6)
Well Ivan, since I might only post once per week, I can't comment much about daily posts. However I think that you need to your own creative 'pace.' And there is no good or bad pace either. Your earlier 140-day stretch was probably more about learning, now it will be more about enjoyment, which is a completely different thing.. Lately, I've not done much either, though that has more to do with the weather either being rainy or completely clear and warm like it has been lately!
Patrick
Patrick - it is an excellent point. I think it's all about enjoying photography more than anything. Some people carry their SLRs everywhere and shoot pictures every day with it. I can't do that, and I don't think I would enjoy doing that. But at the same time, I have a hard time limiting myself to just once a week because if something doesn't work out on the weekend or whenever, I miss two weeks or more and lose some part of my creativity.
Either way, there is no right or wrong approach to it.
Yes, I'd say that after a dry spell of 2-3 weeks, I get 'out of shape" creatively speaking. I've been to the beach 5 times in the past month on the days which might hold promise and have never taken the camera out of the bag due to the bland light. (Well I did do a few super-short exp. shots of sea spray that liike like hubble space shots.) But I feel a little out of it right now.
Doing it every day would be tough though, unless you do macro shots, which could be interesting! You could do your excellent kid shots too and the modeling services are free!
I do shoot my family quite often - perhaps once a week. Of course most of it
are just plain snap shots that don't leave my hard drive. But it's still a
good exercise because it's hard to take these shots without thinking about
the light, composition, etc. Although kids are as cooperative as the weather
in Northern California on most days.
By the way - loved your waves shot. At least you shot something.
Family for me is the best models for photography. You can have them for free plus you can enjoy the bonding moments with them.
I just subscribed to your RSS Feed Ivan! :)