Granted the photo I posted yesterday was nothing exciting but it is part of the process of learning, so it seemed like a good idea to record a baseline. It's often hard to judge progress without the baseline to give a point of reference. One of the aspects of photography that has been dormant for me in recent months is to stretch my comfort zone. Experimenting is fun, challenging, and a necessary element of growth. We often forget to enjoy the journey and focus too hard on the destination. There are many advantages to being in the moment, enjoying the journey. Being open to the experience along the way and being aware of the many paths that can lead to the destination can make all the difference. Sometimes, if you allow yourself that freedom, the destination may be somewhere different than you expected or the destination can involve many opportunities that might not have been apparent when you started.

In a broad sense, I think that my destination in photography is unknown. It's more a case of having places I want to visit while I travel towards that unknown. Some of the places won't be revealed until I have journeyed to other places along the way. The photo I posted yesterday was somewhat crude. Crude in an unfinished sense, not in a negative sense. Today's photo is a marker along the road, it's representative of the distance from yesterday to today on trying to learn how to take certain types of photos. It is by no means indicative of reaching the destination for this branch of the trip. There is still plenty of progress to be made, plenty of crudeness in the image.

In the twelfth month of this photography project for 2008, it's easy to lose a sense of where I have been, what I've done, accomplishments and failures. It's easy to get frustrated and let this project become a grind. There have been many days when I have wondered if I should stop, days when I have questioned whether I belonged in this community with so many talented photographers, days when I was too hard on myself for not achieving the outcome I wanted. Part of those negative feelings have been personal criticism of my skill as a photographer but part of the negative feelings have been things from other areas of my life influencing how I felt about my photography. This is a diverse group and each person has their own challenges that are independent of what is in our photographs. It's important for me to remember why I am here, in this community, involved in this project. Fun and personal enjoyment need to be at the top of the list.

Whether you like the photo from yesterday, today, or tomorrow is not for me to decide. It's beyond my scope of control. The funny thing about submitting photos here is that it has remained an act of sharing and how an image will be interpreted is an unknown. It is still gratifying when people truly like one of my images but it isn't an expectation nor a requirement.

Today's song is by Yoav, the title is "Where Is My Mind?" from the "Charmed and Strange" album.

Granted the photo I posted yesterday was nothing exciting but it is part of the process of learning, so it seemed like a good idea to record a baseline. It's often hard to judge progress without the baseline to give a point of reference. One of the aspects of photography that has been dormant for me in recent months is to stretch my comfort zone. Experimenting is fun, challenging, and a necessary element of growth. We often forget to enjoy the journey and focus too hard on the destination. There are many advantages to being in the moment, enjoying the journey. Being open to the experience along the way and being aware of the many paths that can lead to the destination can make all the difference. Sometimes, if you allow yourself that freedom, the destination may be somewhere different than you expected or the destination can involve many opportunities that might not have been apparent when you started.

In a broad sense, I think that my destination in photography is unknown. It's more a case of having places I want to visit while I travel towards that unknown. Some of the places won't be revealed until I have journeyed to other places along the way. The photo I posted yesterday was somewhat crude. Crude in an unfinished sense, not in a negative sense. Today's photo is a marker along the road, it's representative of the distance from yesterday to today on trying to learn how to take certain types of photos. It is by no means indicative of reaching the destination for this branch of the trip. There is still plenty of progress to be made, plenty of crudeness in the image.

In the twelfth month of this photography project for 2008, it's easy to lose a sense of where I have been, what I've done, accomplishments and failures. It's easy to get frustrated and let this project become a grind. There have been many days when I have wondered if I should stop, days when I have questioned whether I belonged in this community with so many talented photographers, days when I was too hard on myself for not achieving the outcome I wanted. Part of those negative feelings have been personal criticism of my skill as a photographer but part of the negative feelings have been things from other areas of my life influencing how I felt about my photography. This is a diverse group and each person has their own challenges that are independent of what is in our photographs. It's important for me to remember why I am here, in this community, involved in this project. Fun and personal enjoyment need to be at the top of the list.

Whether you like the photo from yesterday, today, or tomorrow is not for me to decide. It's beyond my scope of control. The funny thing about submitting photos here is that it has remained an act of sharing and how an image will be interpreted is an unknown. It is still gratifying when people truly like one of my images but it isn't an expectation nor a requirement.

Today's song is by Yoav, the title is "Where Is My Mind?" from the "Charmed and Strange" album.