I’ve been kicking around the idea of doing my own “take a picture every day for a year” project, a project that every camera owner on the planet (or at least on Flickr) seems to be tackling lately. I always talk myself out of it. I mean, I ran Moonplantation (my old photoblog) for just a couple months, which I only updated three times a week, and it almost became a job. I stressed out over producing photos for it, even though my shooting schedule was self-imposed and completely arbitrary. I’m not entirely sure why other people choose to do 365 photo projects, but here is why I’m finally going to commit to my own.

My friend Ben (one of the most amazing artists I know) has been interning at a local studio for several months now. He’s been doing so much drawing not for himself lately that he’s burning out and has started to devote an hour a day to drawing whatever the hell he wants to draw. It doesn’t have to impress anybody, an editor doesn’t have to approve it, it’s not going to be seen by anybody (except for maybe a couple friends, if they ask). Ben and I had a several-hour-long talk about creativity and the creative process the other night (which wasn’t as pretentious as it sounds) in which he brought this up. I also mentioned that I had been entertaining the idea of taking a photo a day. He was probably more enthusiastic about it than I was, and there are several reasons I ended up getting very excited about the project.

First of all, I’m getting to be a better photographer all the time. Actually, when I look back at the stuff I was shooting just a year ago, I’m unbelievably embarrassed of it. The thing is, I’ve progressed without a real conscious effort on my part. I took over 11,000 photos in 2009 — more than three times what I shot in 2007 and 2008 combined — and that was WITHOUT making an effort to have my camera with me at all times. I absolutely cannot become a worse photographer over the next year, and by forcing myself to take photos, whether I want to or not, is not only going to speed this process up, but will change how I approach photography entirely; it will put me in the habit of not even thinking about whether or not I should grab my camera when I step out the door, I will just always have it. When the year is up, I will have long since been placed in that mindset, and will continue to carry the camera with me without it being a “rule.”

But I think more important than getting better at what I do, it’s the changing of my approach to photography. My friends would say “How hard can it be to take a photo a day? You just push a button. Just take a fucking picture a day and be done with it.” It’s NOT that simple, because my brain does not work that way. There are maybe a lot of people with cameras that don’t have a problem taking a picture, any picture, and throwing it on a blog. I cannot just take a picture. When I put a camera up to my eye, there are a million things going through my head, particularly if I’m shooting a person. Most of it I can’t really put into words or explain, but a lot of it is, “Can I make this person look how they want to look in photos? If I put this online, everybody that sees it is going to judge me and my skill. Am I good enough? Is this photo going to be worth showing to people at all? Am I even going to like it? If I don’t like the photo, how can the person I’m shooting like it? I hate snapshots, this can’t look like a snapshot. I hate art, this can’t look like art,” and on and on. There’s this trepidation, nearly every time I push the shutter. It’s often even worse when I get home and get them onto the computer: “These are awful. I’m a fucking idiot. Photography is bullshit. What a fucking waste of time.” I think forcing myself to take a picture every day, and showing it to people, whether or not I think it is representative of my skill, will help ease this issue I have, and make me more comfortable with the fact that not everything I shoot is going to be incredible, while at the same time building the confidence in myself that I am a competent enough photographer that most of what I shoot should have at least a little photographic merit.

The difference between Moonplantation and my year project is that for Moonplantation I made three photos a week. For this project I only need to take a photo a day. Then, in instances where I actually want to make a photo, it should come more easily to me. Hopefully, I want to write a little bit about each photo as well, whether or not I enjoyed taking it, whether or not I like the final result, etc etc, as a sort of director’s commentary.

So blah blah blah, I can’t really explain this that well, but I tried. The point is, I’m going to take a photo every day for a year, beginning tomorrow, to in some way document an entire year of my life (tomorrow’s my birthday, I turn 28).

I’ll post a link here tomorrow when the first image goes up.