Today is August 22nd, 366 days after August 23rd, 2007, when I made a promise to take a picture every day for a year. I was later unsuccessful in fulfilling that promise, and I was unable to finish the project.
Day 1: Introductions
The promise I made, introduced here, was to take a daily picture for a year. I did well, making it over halfway through to day 202, but then a myriad of circumstances culminated into my missing a day. A broken camera, a long period of not posting the photos and not getting feedback, a crazy work schedule, a bout of insomnia and then boom: I missed one day. And I couldn’t go on. I’d rather fail than have an incomplete finish. So I stopped, at day 202.
Breaking - Day 15
A Boy and His Camera - Day 64
Despite not finishing, the project was eye opening and life changing for me. It allowed me to be creative, and I learned so much about myself and photography. This post contains many pictures of myself that I took during the project.
Movement - Day 116
But despite all the benefits of the project, that fact that it was incomplete is saddening to me, so tomorrow will be day 1 again. A totally insignificant date, August 23rd, will mark the beginning of my project yet again.
Here we go.
God definitely has a sense of humor. Tonight he laughed at me–a lot–and I laughed with him–most of the time.
One of my many sub-hobbies of my bigger photography hobby is lighting photography. It requires an intense mixture of bravery, patience, and patience. Oh yeah… and lightning. I drove around in the heavy part of the storm looking for a sheltered place to set up. I ended up letting the storm pass looking for a spot. Eventually I settled in a ramada at Tumbleweed Park in Chandler. I aimed my camera at the horizon and began firing.
You see, to shoot lightning, you normally need to hold the shutter open until a bolt strikes. Easy enough, except where there are other lights (like street lights) on that horizon. I had six to ten seconds to before the other lights would ruin the photo. So for a good 15 minutes I passed the time taking a photo every 6 seconds. It seemed like every bolt (and there weren’t many) came inbetween exposures. I cursed aloud the third time it happened. A few minutes later, my SD card is filling up and I stop to dump some images, and I miss a spectacular bolt. Finally I decide to leave after 25 minutes, having gotten nothing more than a distant cloud-to-cloud and as I pick up my camera and tripod and beautiful bolt strikes right where my camera was pointed.
He laughed. I laughed. I said, “Okay! I stay a while longer and wait for it.” And it came. I walked away with 15 nice shots, but I had to first fall victim to God’s pranks.
"Cloud to Ground": One of my better lighting shots from tonight.
I guess God is funny like that.
So now that I am back to blogging, what am I going to use it for? Well…
I am still involved in web design, though I would rather classify myself as a web programmer, because my designs suck while my code is beautiful. I write front-end in HTML/XHTML semantically with CSS for styling (a la the teachings of Zeldman) and I write back-end in PHP and Ruby on Rails (RoR). I am building a top-secret web application in RoR for professional artists that I aim to release by the end of the year. I expect I will blog about those things.
I am going to begin school at ASU next month and I am sure stories from life as a student will enter this blog. Posts about being a student (again), transitioning from community college to university, and about returning to school after a break are likely to appear.
Because ASU charges an ungodly amount of money ($780) to park on campus and an unholy amount ($280) to park in their glorified park-and-ride known as lot 59 (1 mile away and a 10 minute bus ride from campus), I will be riding busses and bikes to/from school. I have become very excited about my bike and all its potential benefits for me (save money, save gas, save the truck, save my gut) and for the world (save the environment) that I will be sharing a lot about my life as an alternate commuter in a not-so communter friendly city.
During my dark times between the blogs I picked up a hobby to try and release some emotions. Since then, me and my camera have been joined at the hip. For most of last year I was involved in a daily-self-portrait group and though a broken computer stopped me short of my one year goal, it hasn’t stopped my photography bug. Lots of photos to come!
Finally, I like to observe and comment on life, the news, and politics. While this blog will not be another piss-on-Washington site, I am likely to discuss some of my observations from time-to-time.
So, thats my plan!