50/365 Days of Photography

After yet another time I was pestering my girlfriend to go out and shoot some photos with me, I came across the website tookapic. The concept is simple, upload a photo every day for a year. So I hopped on, realizing I wanted to take more photos.

It’s not a new concept to photography. Just like any other craft, doing it more often means you’ll progress faster. Photographers have been doing this sort of thing on their own for a while. What tookapic provides is a website that reminds you to be consistent holds you accountable, and tracks your streak with fun achievement incentives and a good looking gallery to collect your photos from the project.

Here’s what I’ve learned after 50 days of photography.

1. Shooting daily provides a new kind of challenge that’s just right. I’ve worked on photo projects before that involve a theme over a long period of time. And those are great! But shooting something daily pushes you to find the right subject out of the unknown.

2. More time and care really affects the quality of your photos. If you’re scrambling last minute, it may or may not be bad, but it will be harder to make it good. Which goes well with my next point…

3. Cats are a perfect goto subject if you’re struggling. This is both good and bad.

4. I love editing. Well really I already knew this but it still stays true. Editing is as much fun for me as shooting.

5. There are days where you can’t wait to shoot and others where you aren’t looking forward to it. Despite the ups or downs of any given day, I’ve realized in the long run how important it is to create daily. The reward has been a growth in my abilities and confidence.

6. You can feel the passion and joy for photography on tookapic by just looking at photos from other users. It’s endless inspiration.

Goals moving forward:

1. I want to push myself with weekly or ongoing subject themes. The website seems to promote them and I can see why. Just trying to find anything to shoot can sometimes feel unfocused.
2. Shooting/editing/publishing more than one picture a day. I’d like to do more photography than just this project. And now that I’ve got some momentum going I believe that will be easier.