Y34 – A Photo Project
Earlier in the year I decided that I should be trying to do more with my life and set about trying to achieve something, however small, every day. It wasn’t a New Year Resolution but like so many resolutions the intention was good and it lasted a while before fading away probably somewhere in May.
One thing I was going to try and do is take more photos, at the time I wondered if I should set myself some targets such as trying to take one good photo each week but I didn’t. I took some photos but soon forget. A few months ago I started thinking about photos again and decided that it would actually be quite cool to take a photo of something every day. The idea stuck with me and when my birthday was approaching it seemed like a good opportunity. I decided that for the next year, my 34th year, I would take a photo every day and even more surprising I seem to be doing it.
I haven’t set myself any rules, it’s just one photo every day for a year. I’m hoping that most of the photos will literally be a snapshot of that day and somehow represent that day in my life. This may not always be the case and I may just end up photographing something seemingly random. I still seem to be scared of taking photos of people (which I’m sure comes from being camera shy myself) so I suspect humans will largely be absent but hopefully not.
The whole project will probably be fairly dull and therefore true representation of my life but I’m optimistically hoping that something interesting will happen and there’ll be photos to accompany it.
March Update
At the start of March I set myself some goals, nothing too remarkable, but I think I did reasonably well. I managed to finish reading Bad Science (brilliantly terrifying), Edge and Empire before the end of the month and got rewarded by my next issue of Empire going missing in the post. I’ve started to play Zelda and think I’m about half way through it, hopefully I’ll finish in April before some other games I’m looking forward to get released. It was only the blogging and running that didn’t quite meet my targets but three out of four blogs isn’t too bad. I only ran nine of the twelve runs I’d aimed for but I have a list of excuses: the weather was bad, I was away for a weekend, followed by a hangover which developed into a cold. Still I guess any running is better than none and I think the nike+ thingymebob will help motivate me to keep it up, you can follow my progress here.
Forward March
My goal of trying to achieve something every day is going reasonably well. The last few weeks and days have been a bit of a hectic rush, trying to get all sorts of things done mainly for Keswick Film Festival which took place at the weekend. Despite achieving something every day I still felt that there were a lot of things that I failed to do in February; I did no exercise, fell behind on my reading and viewing and was too busy with the Festival to get much else done. I also only had vague ideas of what it was I was trying to achieve, and so in March I thought I should have some more definite goals and here they are:
- Run 3 times a week (even if it’s just on Wii Fit)
- Read Empire & Edge before the end of the month
- Finish reading Bad Science
- Start playing Zelda: Spirit Tracks
- Blog once a week
(I though there was more but at least that’s a starting point)
Carpe Diem
For Christmas, my brother got a copy of the Lonely Planet book 132 Seize The Days which explains how everybody in the UK has at least 132 free days (164 weekend days, 8 Bank Holidays and 20 statutory annual paid leave) and then goes on to suggest ways to make the most of them. These suggestions include visiting a Blue Flag beach, travelling West Africa by train, Island hopping in the South Pacific, partaking in a survival course in deepest Guyana and many many more. I, on the other hand, received Can’t Be Arsed :101 Things NOT To Do Before You Die which is a better match for my less ambitious mind (although it should be noted that I have already done quite a few of the 101 things).
Both books did make me thing that I should be doing more with my life especially after 2009, despite an interesting start, seemed fairly uneventful. My problem is that the big things never really appeal to me, I don’t really have any desire to run with the bulls in Pamplona or attempt the three peak challenge. This doesn’t mean that I’m completely lacking ambition I don’t want to waste my time doing nothing but it’s the small things I want to be achieving and when you have piles of unread books, unwatched DVDs and unplayed games not to mention a PVR which usually has around 70 items on it to watch, these small things do feel like achievements.
January is a foolish time to make any kind of resolutions and I never do, but from February I decided that I should be trying to achieve something, no matter how small, every single day. I don’t think the actual task is really the important part but I’m hoping that reflecting on each day and being focussed enough to attempt something everyday will ensure that I’m not letting time slip by. I did consider blogging each day what I thought I had achieved but I think that might be far too tedious for everybody. To start with I’ll be keeping things to myself which also has the advantage of if I fail and give up in a few weeks time it won’t be quite as obvious!
The Blog With No Name (Yet) 