A Photo A Day...DONE!

I've never done the whole new year's resolution because I couldn't really think of anything that did seem trite on January 1st. I should eat healthy anyway, I should work out anyway, I should be nicer to people anyway, and I should floss my teeth every day anyway. But last new year, Terry and I decided that we would take at least 1 photo every single day for the entire year of 2010. We were actually living 2 time zones apart due to my military assignment at the time, so we figured it would be a fun way to stay in each other's business throughout the year. Fortunately we only ended up being apart for about 8 months of the year, so that was a bonus (yet there are no photos of us together...guess that's the problem with both of us having a camera in hand!). Terry did the POTD project, too, and hopefully he'll be posting his top pics later this week. I've alluded to my thoughts on the project in a previous blog post. I've definitely grown as a photographer this year, but so many days found both of us taking a picture of something without substance just to get an image. Not ideal for building a portfolio, but we still had a good time. Glad we did it, glad it's over.

I went back and picked my favorites for the last year. I wanted to do one a month, but some months I sucked and some months I did well, so it isn't exact. There are photos here from Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, Colorado, Iowa, Arizona, and California. The entire year also saw photos from Mississippi, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, and New Mexico. Funny, my very first image last year remains one of my favorites from the whole year.

I did a mountain bike race on New Year's Day. A muddy mountain bike race.

Then I had to go to a military training course in Alabama that required me to bring both pairs of combat boots.

Our sweet little Brittany Spaniel was very excited to see me when I came home.

I don't know why I like this tree, but I do. The bare branches and the clouds just worked. This was immediately after finishing a super fun off-road duathlon at a state park in Tyler, TX.

Massey have a nap after one of our adventures in the brambly wilds of the Louisiana backwoods.

The view from my parent's yard as an evening thunderstorm rolls across the Iowa corn fields.

Terry shooting the sunset at Point Lobos State Preserve in Carmel over the 4th of July weekend.

Rabbit brush and an old cabin south of Leadville, CO.

While our families were all together in Colorado, we headed out to take some photos at the beautiful Clinton Reservoir.

I love this photo of my parent's sleeping dog. Everyone was worn out after my Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race attempt.

Zinnias growing at my parent's house. I liked the colors. It was easy to sneak up to Iowa for a long weekend when I lived in Louisiana.

In September I was finally free of the Air Force. Terry came out to load up me and the dog and we drove 4 days out of the Dirty South and straight to freedom! We stopped along the way at Grand Canyon National Park, where Terry decided to test how high he could get my heart rate without a workout while he strolled out to the edge of the 1,000,000,000,000,000' drop off into the Canyon.

I went up to shoot a few days in the Eastern Sierra during the peak of fall color. This cottonwood wasn't too far from Bishop.

An evening of street shooting near the Embarcadero in San Francisco.

We took the dog for a hike through Fort Ord after a storm cleared out. I love the golden California hills in late fall.

This is one of my favorite images this year. Its probably one of my favorite photos I've ever taken. I was at Joshua Tree National Park with some other photographers, so I had to wait patiently not only for the light but also for my fellow shooters to move around, leaving a spot to set my tripod. I was happy to wait.

Terry surprised me with an unbelievable weekend in San Francisco for my birthday. On Sunday we were driving through Presidio when we came across this scene in the National Cemetery. Somber.

For Christmas Eve we cut the grass...and dyed our puppy's paws green in the process.

So that's it. I'm not taking a photo all day today. I have no resolution for this year either. I want to ride my mountain bike a lot and I want to get out and take more photos in the beautiful scenic spots around California. But I'm not tying myself to anything measured. Go out, have fun, live. That's what 2011 is about.

Happy New Year!

Day 313.

Today is the 313th day of 2010. As our Flickr follows have figured out, we have been doing a Photo of the Day project for 2010, and so far, we've each posted 312 photos (that's through yesterday) to our respective POTD sets on Flickr. 624 total for teamwelliver. That's a lot of photos, but that's only 1 photo per day. Sure, some days we've only taken 1 photo, but other days, we've each taken a bunch. Our Aperture library is overflowing, our hard drives are quickly filing, yet most days only get 1 single photo posted. I have other photos from those days that I like, but they tend to get orphaned, left to wilt and get lost in the shuffle of far too many photos. So today I share some of my favorites from the last week or so that didn't make my cut as the POTD. Doesn't mean I didn't like them--they just weren't "the one" for that day.

This collage was all taken with my Canon G10 point and shoot while I was hiking with the dog on a damp, foggy morning last week. If you're curious, this day's POTD can be found here.

This set is from a walk to the post office yesterday afternoon with the dog. The upper left photo here actually was my POTD from yesterday.

And finally some spiderwebs from that same damp morning as the first collage above. Again, captured with the G10 point and shoot.

My thoughts on the POTD project with just over a month and a half to go...its been fun, especially during the periods when I was living in Louisiana and Terry was living in Monterey. Its been tough to find something inspiring everyday. Some days its been hard just to find time to take a quick photo. Some days we've gotten some good stuff. On a few days we've even gotten great stuff. On other days we just take whatever is easy, especially when its 11 pm and its time for bed and we've forgotten to take a photo. Has it made us better photographers? I think so, but at the same time, I feel its polluted our pool of photos. We've posted some lower quality stuff on Flickr, thus sharing art that isn't our best work with the world. Does that matter? Who knows.

In the end what matters is that we've done something we love to do, everyday, for a whole year. We've documented us. We've documented life. We've documented our lives. Will we do it again next year? Probably not. The project will have run its course. But its been a fun little journey.