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.
Published on
August 7, 2008 in
Faith, News, Sports & Politics and Photography.
Tags: Faith, News, Sports & Politics, lightning, long exposure photography, night, Photography, religion, thunder.
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.