365 days and 2500 photos
It’s over. I did it.
Last new year I made a resolution, I would take at least one picture every day for a year and post it on line. This is a so called “365 challenge” that is fairly popular among photographers. The number of photographs would’t be a problem, I usually take well over 1000 pictures in a year as a matter of course, many more if there are some good vacations. The real challenge was to take a picture EVERY DAY, even if I didn’t feel like it, even if the weather sucked, even if I had better things to do. I was under no delusions it would be easy.
And it wasn’t easy! Yeah, I took over 2500 pictures this year, but some days I took only a single picture, and some of those sucked! I posted at least one picture from every day here, there are 572 pictures posted and most of them I am proud of in one way or another. Sure, quite a few are not great art and a number are total throw-aways, but that is OK because I didn’t resolve to take a GREAT picture every day, I only resolved to “exercise” my creativity and to find something to take a picture of every day. Why did I do this? I hoped it would make me a better photographer, a better artist and I knew it would make me intimately familiar with my equipment, helping me get the good shots when I really want them.
I thought I would start 2012 with a retrospective of my 2011 365 challenge, with the top 12 photos. These are not the 12 best overall, but each represents the best image of the particular month. Selection was made by me, no one else gets a vote! Judging was difficult job to be sure, because as the artist I can’t separate the effort from the result, but I tried. So, without further ado…
January 2011
Starting was easy, but I knew that it would quickly become difficult to think of new subjects, so I started the year by assigning myself a “theme” every week. One of the early themes was “texture” and I tried to take interesting photographs that captured that theme. These vines growing up a tree in my back yard have wonderful texture, and I think they are perfect rendered in black and white.
February 2011
Another early theme was “dark” and I did a lot of experiments with long exposure. My Olympus E500 was not well suited to low light performance, but I ran with the noisy look in this photo and made it part of the style. I love the starbursts in the lights and the red trail left by the car moving through the scene. The who picture has a great, gloomy mood.
March 2011
“Action” was one of the themes I shot in March. I got a lot of good pictures from this and this is my favorite. That is william hanging in the air for a wonderful silhouette lay-up. I carefully positioned myself so that the sun would just peek out from behind the backboard, creating the sunburst through the rim. I really like this shot and think it could only really be improved if I cut down some of the trees in the background to make William’s outline cleaner 
April 2011
The weather finally started to get consistently nice in April, and I started expanding my reach for photographs. I soon “discovered” with new eyes the incredible number of decaying old barns and sheds in the area. These were irresistible to me as subjects, something that would continue for much of the year. This is one of Meagan’s favorites, so that is why I chose it for this post. Wonderful details and textures help tell the story of this springhouse.
May 2011
Another great discovery was the number of historic bridges in the area. The engineering geek in me loves these as subjects. This is the Lehigh Canal RR bridge in North Catasauqua, and it is a registered historic bridge with fantastic riveted construction and a great rusty patina. I took this abstract shot capturing a skyward view of the structure and a bit of graffiti. The play of light and shadow and pattern really makes this shot for me. This shot was entered in the “Life in the Valley” photo contest from Dans, and was predictably beat out by pictures of cute kids and pets. Sigh…
June 2011
More barns. I picked this shot from June mostly because of the way the sky looks, very dramatic, and the very wide angle view of the barn provides some visual interest.
July 2011
This is, without doubt, one of my favorite images from the year, and based on the response on line, others like it also. I was driving along in the “Golden Hour” before sunset and saw this boat floating on a pond nearby, but well off the road. There were a lot of other interesting things around so I drove down the driveway, went up and rang the doorbell of the house to ask if I could take pictures. “Why?” came the response. “Just because I think your property is beautiful and interesting.” With this old rowboat with the peeling paint and perfect reflection, in great light, there was no way to take a bad picture.
August 2011
I was really in a groove through the summer. The pictures came easy as I could be out driving around and see subjects all the time. Long days made it easy to go back to locations when the light was good and get the shot I wanted. This shot was taken from my point and shoot camera while I was on a bike ride. It looked good in color, but black & white with a sepia tone really made it the picture I had in my mind.
September 2011
I drive past this abandoned office high rise every day on my way to work, and I have photographed it several times. The early fall brought temperature changes and heavy morning fog, and I just knew that the fog would add visual interest to the building if I could get the right angle. I had to drive around a couple of barricades to get close enough to the building to get this shot, but it was worth it.
October 2011
Winter came early in 2011, and I almost picked one of my pictures from “Octsnowberfest” for this month, but in the end I really like this self portrait. I was experimenting with off camera flash and trying to get a classic low-key portrait. The only think I don’t like is that I can’t figure out how I got so old…
November 2011
One thing I didn’t expect was that the challenge would get more difficult toward the end. For a while I felt like I had taken pictures of everything possible! The fact is I had taken a lot of pictures of the Bethlehem Steel ruins, some of which I really liked. What I hadn’t done was experiment with High Dynamic Range photography. This photo is actually the result of stacking 5 different exposures. The result is great detail in the deep shadows as well as in the brightest areas of the image. I love the “grungy” look.
December 2011
With the finish line in site, December was still very challenging, For sure through the year I put a lot more pressure on myself to produce “good” images. Every time I resorted to a quick snapshot of my top Louie I was frustrated for not being more creative or finding a more compelling image. This stepped up the quality of my best images in the last couple of months. In my mind, this might be the best photo I took because it tells an entire story with one image. I called this one “Faded Glory” when I posted it.
Well, as Porky Pig says, “That’s all folks!” My 365 challenge is over, and I am very glad I did it. Thank you all for coming along for the ride, and for commenting, liking, and otherwise acknowledging my photos on the various social sites. Your support was key! Am I a better photographer today than I was 365 days ago? I certainly think so. I’ve been trying to decide on a new photo challenge for 2012. I definitely don’t want to do another 365 because I want EVERY shot to be purposeful and it just isn’t possible (for me) to make great art every day.
January 3rd, 2012 at 7:26 pm
Congrats on completing the challenge, Frank! Judging from the shots you’ve posted here, you did a fantastic job. Are you going for round two? Or taking a break from the 365!
January 3rd, 2012 at 7:45 pm
Thanks Chris,
I’m definitely taking the year off from the challenge, thought I don’t really expect to shoot less, I just don’t want to “have” to shoot!