As you may have seen, I have recently finished my second Project 365 and whilst going through all 365 chosen photos from 2019 I realised two things: it was one of the most challenging photography projects I ever did, but also one of the best photography projects I ever did. I learned a few things after completing this project back in 2017 but let’s talk about the challenges I faced this time around.
On 1st January 2019 I decided to shoot our family life daily and to start with it felt a bit strange. I was already photographing us quite regularly but it was definitely the case of building a new habit and we know these take quite a while to get ingrained in us. After a while daily shooting became a normality for me and those around me and it was easier to stick to.
The challenge then was choosing my daily selects: downloading the photos, culling through hundreds of them, choosing 'the ones', editing them, uploading them to an app (I've been using Collect as it shows your month with thumbnails of your chosen photos - it looks really encouraging once you see your month filling in with photos), and then creating my monthly grids that I would share here on my blog. This project is a huge commitment and takes a lot of organisation and even though I think of myself as highly organised, it was sometimes hard for me to keep up with it all! But I persevered and I'm so glad I did.
Out of 365 photos there were lots of photos that were my favourites. Some of them are my all time favourites. There were also lots of photos that were a bit 'meh' or even plain boring. But when I started going through them all, one by one, from 1st January to 31st December... they told a story.
A story of OUR FAMILY LIFE.
The great moments, the bad moments, the happy moments, the sad moments, and all the in-between moments.
They showed what 2019 looked like for US.
They showed the fleeting moments and things that no longer happen in our life (like the way Emilia would step over a doorstep). The photos captured our everyday and made me appreciate the extraordinary of our ordinary life.
I've put together a video that shows all of my chosen 365 photos from last year. As soon as I saw this video I knew right there that I would continue shooting daily in 2020 and carry on with this project (I guess it will now be called Project 366 though!). I know it will help me not only appreciate us as we are as a family, but also let me grow as an artist and cultivate my own voice through my photographs.
So without further ado, here is 2019 as told by me. Enjoy!