I guess if I’m doing this, I should really document the experience somewhat. The photos themselves are over on Flickr so I’ll just post a couple I’m super-pleased with here as I really want to talk about how I’m finding this project.

So it’s been a month since I started Project 365 on 1 January. Mostly I’ve been very good, but I’ve missed 3 days so far, due to a variety of factors – two days due to chaos and one due to international travel and forgetting what day it was (also chaos). Not as good as I’d hoped to be, but not bad. I’ll be interested to see how I get on with it now that I’m back home and also now that February is upon us and I’m thinking of having a stab at RPM Challenge again.

Project 365 so far has been quite a bit different from the other online projects I’ve done in that it’s been very solitary. True, I haven’t been checking on the group on Flickr and I haven’t joined the project’s official website (yet – may still do that), but I feel quite alone doing this as I’ve received little feedback on the photos I post. I’m also not feeling much accountability for this one because it doesn’t feel like anyone’s really watching, which makes it a bit easier to forget I’m doing it. Thinking I might contact P and see if she experienced this when she did this back in Flickr’s heyday or if it was a more social experience then.

What I’ve found interesting about the project though has been the diary aspect of it. I find myself not only searching for a strong shot, but also considering how that shot reflects what I’ve done that day – does it show where I’ve been or what happened? Can I encapsulate the experience of that day such that it will trigger memories later. Of the two photos above, the one of the hallway I think is a great image, with the reflections of the painting, but it doesn’t tell me much about that day (I took it in the morning when not much had happened, so even at the time it felt like it belonged to that morning-getting-ready time rather than to the day proper) while the one of the lightglobes is bringing back strong memories of wandering about Woollahra with the mother. It’s an interesting balance which I wasn’t expecting and the photos I’m making for this project often feel very personal and revealing because of this aspect.