Three Hundred Sixty Five

September 1 was a big day this year. My niece Rachel turned four. The Byzantine liturgical year arrived (how did that happen so fast?!). Taylor got a sore throat :( Viv came over for salmon patties and broiled greens.  We watched a Poirot mystery and went to bed early (!).

And I also took a photograph.  It's nothing special, really, but it's a beginning--and everyone has to start somewhere, right?  I chose September first to start my project because it's the beginning of the liturgical year, in hopes that I will also be better about keeping the liturgical year at home.  So here it is, day 1.  These are the ribbons to our most-used prayer books, waiting to guide us through our morning prayers.

ribbons

There are several things I want to accomplish over this next year as I take a photograph a day.  I want to get to know my camera better.  I want to know everything it can do, and how I can take advantage of all its features and potential.

I'd like to increase my skill in post-processing, too.  Even in film, you can take all the fun pictures you want but if you develop them poorly or print them badly, it just doesn't cut it.  In this digital age, any earnest photographer needs to learn her way around some of the photo processing software.

Finally, I want to get back into the creative side of photography.  It's been fun simply having a fabulous camera around, so that whenever I felt like it, I could snap a great picture.  But what I enjoyed so much about my first 365 project (with my point and shoot) was that it encouraged me to think about pictures most of the time.  I had to look around when I was walking somewhere, to try and see something worth photographing.  I had to poke around at home, sometimes late at night, trying to sneak a picture in before the day was over, looking for interesting things to capture.

Other challenges I foresee are carrying my dSLR with me whenever I go out (and maybe a tripod, too?).  It's larger than a point and shoot, harder to get out, takes a bit more thinking power to do the settings before I click a picture.. well see how this goes. If you start to see a lot of pictures "around the house" call me out on it, ok? :)

Now, it's one thing to think about pictures all the time (and you'd be amazed how many opportunities present themselves when you're looking), but it's an entirely different thing to actually take the picture you see in your head.  I'm terrible about this, especially if the picture I'm dreaming of includes some person sitting across from me, say, on the bus.  What if I pull my camera out and start clicking and they freak out and start yelling at me?! Or what if I end up with a picture of this person staring straight at my lens with an "I'm totally gonna kill you" look on their face?  That puts me off, a bit.  So.. I want to work on that, too. We'll see how it goes.

Wish me luck!