Photo Escapades.: The End.

I can't believe I made it. The first day of 2011 I just couldn't believe it: I made it one whole year. Did I miss photos? You better believe it... about 20. Literally... 20. And that doesn't include a few that I've included on shear technicalities. They're entirely different stories.

I can now officially say that I documented myself for a full year in photographs. But what did I learn?

Well, I learned that it is incredibly easy to take a nose shot, easily my most frequent mistake. There are more nostril out takes than I know what to do with.

I learned that I am seriously freckly and that I hate my teeth in most circumstances.

I learned that I love my eyes, but if there isn't catch-light in them, just forget it.

I learned that even if I do something repetitively for a year doesn't mean I will necessarily still remember it.

Also, that it's pretty difficult to be creative 365 days in a row. There were plenty of days where I wished beyond anything that I didn't have to take a picture of myself and some of those days I took a picture of anything but my face (check the awful hand pictures ugh).

I was talking to Maria a few days after I'd finished and I was looking through the photos and I was like at least I can say I'm definitely better at editing now.

In the beginning there were a lot of photos I didn't edit period and the ones that I did didn't usually turn out so great. Editing is a crucial skill in digital photography, and while I'm doing the simplest of actions with it, just knowing how to do those well is always helpful.

I can't really say that I've had some profound change in my life after this project. I didn't learn to see myself in some amazing new light. I didn't find more beauty in the world, nor do I think I even really brought more in to it. But like it or not the Project has taught me a thing or two, good and bad. I think it taught me something really important about myself, which is that I can choose to persevere through something that maybe isn't as glamorous as I thought it to be at first. This Project was long and difficult in a lot of ways. It was hard to be objective... and I most certainly was not most of the time. It turns out it's pretty hard to put the value of art above your own vanity... at least for me. I chose a lot of pictures that may not have been technically the best, but they were where I looked the best and at some point that made me happier.

When I look back at this Project now, about a month later I have some mixed emotions. I am so familiar with all of the photos from weeks of editing and sorting and just going through the pictures in general, that I sometimes wonder if I couldn't have done better, that I couldn't have tried harder to make every picture a stand out one. But on the other hand when you have a project on the scale of one year it becomes about survival not style. You snap an artless shot that doesn't give everyone a nice personal look of your septum and you move on to the next day and hope you put more time in to it. After all you have a whole year for fancy shots.

In a twisted way I've even come to love those artless shots. Even the terrible, terrible cell phone shots or the dark and blurry shots because my days weren't perfect and why should the photos I'm taking to represent them be perfect? If I was having a bad day I would try and choose the picture where I don't look happy, even if it's a little bit out of focus or dark or grainy. Of course that certainly wasn't the case with every day, because I'm not sure before this project that I ever realized how much my mood changes in the course of one day. I would take this picture where I'm outside in the sun listening to music, smiling, loving life and in an hour I would be in my room, curtains drawn, angry at the world.

While that is another problem entirely, it sometimes made taking an appropriate photo difficult. When I look back at a photo from this Project in a lot of ways I can tell what was going on that day; I can remember certain things by just looking at a single frame of my day.

All in all I am glad this project is over!

It's truly been an experience, one that I'm not too keen on trying again any time soon.

I do have to admit that I'm glad I did this.

In a way this project is a little bit of a legacy. Who knows maybe one day my grandchildren will be looking at these thinking about how long ago they were taken.

I like the idea that photography never dies, it's timeless.

So this is The End.

I can't say I'm sad to see the back of it.

But to whomever's reading this post, I hope you enjoy the final photos from my Project 365.

Project 365 Statistics:

Total Number of Self Portraits Taken: 343

Total Number of Non-Self Portraits Used: 2

Total Number of Photos in the Project: 345

Days Missed: 22

Number of Photos of My Hands: 8

Number of Photos of My Feet: 3

Number of Photos of Me in Sunglasses: 14

Number of Photos of Me (Visibly) in my Temple Hoodie: 23

Number of Photos in black and white: 87 (Wow!)

Number of Photos With Other People In It: 6

Number of Photos of Me With Coffee: 6 (I expected this to be higher.)

EDIT: So I think it's possible there's about roughly a months worth of pictures missing on my blog. How did I zone out on that? I have them and everything, I just didn't post them I guess?

January 1st, 2011

ONE YEAR!!!!!!!

You know what's funny?

I like the first photo better.

December 31st, 2010

New Year's Eve!

Casey and I spent this night in my family room watching the ball drop with some sparkling grape juice. At midnight we went outside and lit some sparklers and watch fireworks. There were also guys running around my block in boxers screaming.

I don't know how I feel about this photo being the last of 2010, but art is a part of life, you shouldn't have to stop life for it and this was a quick shot and I went back to my evening. Some times that's really the way it should be.

December 30th, 2010

The end is so close I can taste it.

December 29th, 2010

Kind of an interesting photo. I'm not totally sold on it, but I do like it.

December 28th, 2010

I believe Casey and I spent this day on Sporcle taking quizzes.

It was like hours and hours.

December 27th, 2010

Still sick with horrible sinus pain.

No fun.

December 26th, 2010

I believe this was the last nostril shot of the project.

THANK GOD.

December 25th, 2010

Merry Christmas!

I had a really wonderful Christmas. I was just so happy, I can't even explain it.

Rocking my new sequin tank.

December 24th, 2010

Christmas Eve!

After a night at the Lupfer's wearing my new PJ pants :)

I kind of like this photo. Again, it's a perspective I don't usually do, but I like that it showcases my room a little bit.

The self-timer was not something I used very frequently in this project at all. There's only a handful of times I used it and that's due to the difficulty of focusing mostly.

There's nothing I love more than a nice sharp focus.

(Resuming the use of the Rebel for the remainder.)

December 23rd, 2010

Doctors appointment.

"What's 'the Maine'?" as in on my shirt.

December 22nd, 2010

I hate that I'm not using the Rebel for these final pictures, but I felt way too awful to care.

December 21st, 2010

"Probably ranks pretty high up there as one of the worst things I've done as a babysitter making the 3yr old watch @Shinedown on tv."

From Twitter, about watching Ryan. He did not like 'Crow and the Butterfly'.

I seriously considered canceling babysitting this night because I felt so yucky,

but Ryan and I ended up having a nice easy night.

December 20th, 2010

Come on get down with the sickness!

Sick...

December 19th, 2010

December 18th, 2010

In bed in the hotel room the morning after the show.

December 17th, 2010

Well, I forgot to take a photo this day, d'oh!

But I'm kind of cheating like I did with Nickelback [link].

On the 17th, Maria, her mom Kim, and I got on a train and headed to New York city to see the amazing Weezer =w= play the Blue Album front to back.

It ended up being an amazing night! We met some nice people in line.

Even the opening band Free Energy was great. We were third row and had a blast. The crowd was rowdy and Weezer was in top form. There was a really annoying Staten Island family next to us, but I guess they kept us entertained.

Brian Bell had a side band called The Relationship that he sings for so after the show he was signing CDs so we got to meet Mr. Bell :)

I also stood next to Jack Barakat from All Time Low in the lobby.

I'm like oh my God, Maria, that's Jack Barakat! It was just kind of funny, we were leaning against a pillar right next to him and he heard his name and kind of looked up to us standing there, finished his conversation, looked at us and then bolted. It was hilarious.

All in all a fabulouss night.

Oh, but I found this photo online after the show-- I'm the one singing in the pink :P

December 16th, 2010

December 15th, 2010

My 18th birthday!

My mommy bought me balloons and put a happy birthday message on my mirror.

I had an appointment to get my hair highlighted and cut, which is what I'm sporting :)

I should do a before and after collage with this.

That night we ate at Red Lobster and went home to have yummy cake.

December 14th, 2010

My last day being a child.

December 13th, 2010

So I didn't put a lot of effort into shooting this day, basically I was just laying on the couch watching TV snapping some photos and holding very still (1/3 shutter speed).

And while it's an exceedingly simple photo and took very little effort, I definitely love it.

I love the softness of the light, which I usually find really annoying in my family room; yellow walls and tungsten lighting is just a disaster.

Missed the 12th. I was really disappointed to miss a photo so close to the end.