A Photo A Day Challenge
To expand my photographic ability, I took one photo every day for all of 2012 using only my phone.
On New Year's day in 2012, I resolved expand my creativity within photography by taking on a photo-a-day challenge. I gave myself two constraints: 1.) all photos had to be taken with my phone, not my fancy-pants Canon EOS 5D Mark ii; and 2.) all photos had to be uploaded to my personal Facebook at the end of each day for accountability, even if I was dissatisfied with the image. I completed the challenge with a small handful of misses and late uploads, and learned more than I could have ever anticipated.
My comfort zone was professional portraiture–Instagram was cold water. Most days I found myself scrambling to find something–anything–to take a photo of. After a week, I felt like I had exhausted my subjects, my angles, my editing styles. The photos I took seemed meaningless and nothing new. I hated most of them. However, with each day, each week, and each month, my dissastisfaction drove me to push the limits of what I thought possible, to try new things and discover new ways of viewing the world. The risk became worth it. Over time, my pictures got better and better, and with the growth came the satisfaction of creating pictures I was proud of. It also taught me discipline and the benefit of creating work just to excercise your creative muscles, even when what comes out is not something you'd frame and hang on the wall. I can say with confidence that I would not be as good a photographer as I am today had I not taken on this project.
