Making and not making goals - One year.
Monday, February 19, 2018
Yesterday marked one year since I started this project. I've met half of the goal of photographing 52 portraits. That is on average a portrait every two weeks. I am not finished. I am not done.
I created this project with a set of arbitrary rules, some of which I discarded along the way. Such as the very challenging 10-minute rule, which was that all ten frames of the session had to be photographed within a 10-minute time period. That was created to see if it would make the shoot more spontaneous and to challenge me to make great pictures under a time crunch. Mostly it freaked me and the subjects out and felt a bit ridiculous. Haste makes waste, so I jettisoned that rule a few portraits into the project.
Another rule was to finish the project in one year. That parameter is now changed to two years, or however long it takes. It is easy to sit around and come up with a project idea - the rubber meets the road when actually executing the project. I still have great enthusiasm for this project - I love photographing portraits and spending time with the people I photograph. The project is going slower than I thought it would and I'm OK with that.
I knew going into this project it would be a challenge.. but it would produce fun, good memories, and images but would be attainable. It just wouldn't happen in the time frame I initially set up. I have thus far photographed in six states plus Washington, DC for this project. Doing this while juggling work and other life commitments, I'm pleased how this is going so far.
I'm proud of the work. Here is to another year!
I created this project with a set of arbitrary rules, some of which I discarded along the way. Such as the very challenging 10-minute rule, which was that all ten frames of the session had to be photographed within a 10-minute time period. That was created to see if it would make the shoot more spontaneous and to challenge me to make great pictures under a time crunch. Mostly it freaked me and the subjects out and felt a bit ridiculous. Haste makes waste, so I jettisoned that rule a few portraits into the project.
Another rule was to finish the project in one year. That parameter is now changed to two years, or however long it takes. It is easy to sit around and come up with a project idea - the rubber meets the road when actually executing the project. I still have great enthusiasm for this project - I love photographing portraits and spending time with the people I photograph. The project is going slower than I thought it would and I'm OK with that.
I knew going into this project it would be a challenge.. but it would produce fun, good memories, and images but would be attainable. It just wouldn't happen in the time frame I initially set up. I have thus far photographed in six states plus Washington, DC for this project. Doing this while juggling work and other life commitments, I'm pleased how this is going so far.
I'm proud of the work. Here is to another year!
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