I like taking pictures, and afterwards, I like having taken them. But for a few months around the end of 2006 I hadn't really done much of that. So to "make" myself to take more, I challenged myself to take one photo every day for 100 days. Really, the plan was to shoot enough to come up with one that I liked enough to post on the web.

So on the first of February I began this 100 photos in 100 days project. The goal was to take lots of pictures, to challenge myself, and to cause myself to grow as a photographer. It's definitely succeeded at challenging me, and a rather high percentage of them were taken while I "should" have been asleep. But I have a sense of accomplishment, and I have done enough shooting that strangers on the street have asked me where my camera is when I go out without it, which is pretty great.

This isn't my own idea - I got it from a friend who was in a similar creative rut as I was. We both started the challenge at the same time, and it was definitely fun to have someone to talk about it with as it progressed, and to have someone else try to keep up with.

I have some procrastinatory tendencies, so I made up a pretty strict set of rules to keep myself from falling behind or getting totally derailed. These are for my benefit, so I chose them to be easy for me to keep.

Every day I have to take a photo, process it, and post it to my gallery and my blog. I'm a night owl, so for the purposes of this assignment, the day doesn't begin until 7:00am. If I find myself away from a computer or travelling I'm allowed to use stuff from a backlog but only from a few days prior, and I can only do that when I really have no other choice. That's it!

As it was I only had to dig into a backlog once, while I was driving my sister across the country. And there was one night where I got home at 6:30am and didn't get a photo up until minutes before my deadline! I tried not to relax my quality standards too much, but part of the challenge was balancing the desire to throw out a mediocre photo and head back out to take another one against the other things I like to do, such as occasionally sleeping. Though of course I'm not thrilled with all 100 pictures, on the whole I'm proud of my results, my photographic growth, and most of all, my ability to stick to a commitment I made to myself.

Thanks to everyone who offered me feedback and encouragment. You helped keep this fun and exciting instead of a chore that I hated. And don't worry, I'm going to keep posting more, just not quite as regularly!

I'll post more stuff here. My journal is here. Email me here