Today, I have taken my 1000th photo of the day in a row. It all started on 25th April 2013, having successfully completing one 365 project in 2009/10 and failing one in 2012, I decided I would give another year of photo of the day a go.
1000 days later, I’m still at it.
Some days choosing a photo means selecting from 100s of photos. Often it meant selecting from one. A couple of days I didn’t miss by sheer luck. I have one photo of the carpet at work that I accidentally took, and another is of Damian’s business card, which I took when I was demonstrating an app. On more than one occasion I got out of bed to take a photo of an inanimate object at home.
I haven’t personally taken every photo, but I was present at every one. Every photo hasn’t been taken on my camera. And on one occasion I had to get emailed a photo of a whiteboard image I asked someone to take in a meeting (riveting).
But I have 1000 photos.
And more importantly because it is my daily habit, I get to set the rules. And my rules from the outset were very loose. Any camera, any photographer so long as I was present, I wasn’t going to post to Facebook or social media each day, so no obligation to anyone else. I made it as easy as possible and as a result, it was tenfold easier than the first time round.
I would encourage everyone to take a photo a day for a year.
I love being able to look back on 1000 days and have an image for each one. Apart from these images I barely remember what I did 2 weeks ago.
I also love the habit.
Start anytime. Set a goal of 50 days. Tell no one. Just enjoy it.
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So now that I have hit 1000 days, the big question I’ve been asked is “will I stop?”
That’s actually a harder question than it seems…
Right now I’m on holiday, taking a photo a day is easy.
3 x 365 is just around the corner.
So is 4 x 365.
And 5.
I will stop eventually. But I now have an automatic habit of 1000 days. To stop, will require breaking the habit, and habit making or breaking takes a lot of energy and hard work.
Life can never be lived perfectly.
Last week I was out running with Jay tagging along on his bike. As I ran, a seagull became increasingly disturbed with my presence and finally started dive bombing me. We sought shelter under some trees and, once the bird was over it, we carried on.