Marcus Cavanaugh

A Photo Every Day: Complete.

In 2007, I took a photo every day.¹

That’s right: I took 365 photos, one for each day of 2007. Each photo is supposed to represent a memory or aspect of my life from that day.

At the beginning of 2007, I read about an idea called Project 365 and decided to follow through with the concept. So I carried my digital camera around with me every day, snapping a photo to represent that day.

What have I learned?

The aforementioned Project 365 site suggested this:

Taking a photo a day is a big undertaking with big payoffs. Here are just a few reasons why you should consider doing it:

1. Imagine being able to look back at any day of your year and recall what you did, who you met, what you learned… (Often we find it hard to remember what we did just yesterday or even last night, let alone a whole year ago!)
2. Your year-long photo album will be an amazing way to document your travels and accomplishments, your haircuts and relationships. Time moves surprisingly fast.
3. Taking a photo a day will make you a better photographer. Using your camera every day will help you learn its limits. You will get better at composing your shots, you’ll start to care about lighting, and you’ll become more creative with your photography when you’re forced to come up with something new every single day.

Photography has always been a strong interest of mine; heck, my first screen name had “shutterbug” in it. As you’ll see, Project 365 didn’t make me a better photographer — most of my photos are just quick snapshots, and I didn’t put a whole lot of effort into photographic composition. But it’s interesting to go back through the year to remember what happened.

Will I continue in 2008?

Not exactly… here’s why:

As I reflect back on the photos I took last year, many are great and represent substantial memories of my life. There are many photos, though, which have nothing to do with anything important²; those photos are just there to fill the day’s slot.

Rather than clogging my photostreams with useless filler photos, I instead plan to take a photo when I see something meaningful and worth remembering, rather than just to “fill a quota”.

Enough of my rambling: View my 2007 photo-a-day set.

Posted 18 January 2008 in Photography

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