What the heck is the 365-day photo challenge? It was my personal challenge to shoot one photo over the course of one year. I started on September 7th, 2014. It should have ended on September 6, 2015. I took a flurry of photos on that time frame, but somehow I wasn't able to keep up first with the daily routine shooting, and second with the posting. Up until last week, I was posting backlogged photos into the space. I got tired. I got lazy. I didn't see the point of going on. But then, somehow I needed to end it. I needed to close the book. A year and a half hence, here I am ending my own challenge.
However, my unfinished finished challenge did not end as a failure. In fact, I found this challenge to be enlightening and fun. Below are two reasons why I think this challenge was a success even if I did not finish it:
1. It made me appreciate the mundane things. During the first few weeks of the challenge, I struggled to find the right subject and object since I had a day job and I work on a routine: commute to work with wife, walk to office, work for 8-9 hours, walk to wife's office, commute home. With my hands full I cannot seem to insert this challenge into the routine. But that routine also made my challenge a bit more interesting. I started appreciating the world around me while I do the routine: the symmetry of my office's stairs; the architecture of our neighboring building; the happy musician in the corner; the flowers and the trees; the lampposts. The challenge gave a new color to my seemingly dull day.
2. It made me read more about photography. Yes, the geeky stuff: from aperture, shutter speed, and ISO up to chromatic aberration, ghosting and all those terminologies that people read about to bring about beautiful photos. But one thing I also learned is that knowledge of the technicals is power, but the icing on the cake is the composition. The Dance. This challenge made me want more, do more and be more in photography. 365-days hence, I think I have improved, but I still have way much more to learn.
3. It made me realize my favorite based on the subjects I posted. I posted more on travel, landscapes, street photography and food. Expect more of these kinds of topics in the coming posts of this blog.
It was indeed a fun 365 days. I will do it again but maybe on a shorter time frame. :)
With this, I am posting the last photo of the 365-day challenge, which I took on September 6, 2015. We went for a tour of the Statue of Liberty in New York City. As we were docking to the island, I took this view of the NYC skyline with Lady Liberty:
Lady Liberty and NYC
September 6, 2015
New York City
Nikon D7100, Nikkor 10-24mm f3.5-4.5
If you want to read about my journey to the 365-day challenge, click here.
Now on to my next challenge. :)
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