Project 365: The one where she almost quit

In the 95 days that I’ve been working on my 365 project (to take and post a photo every day) there were a few days near the beginning where I almost forgot, but for the most part, I haven’t come close to missing any days or thinking about throwing in the towel. Until this week. This week, I almost quit.

Mind you, I was tired and cranky and feeling overwhelmed in general, and I might have been considering throwing in the towel on a LOT of things that particular night, but the 365 was the one I was most frustrated with. Much like blogging, the damn project has taken on a life of its own, and much like the kids, demands way too much of my attention.

When I started out, I was simply taking pictures and uploading them. The picture-finding was the stressful part; once I had one, or sometimes a couple, that I liked I’d simply upload them directly to Flickr and into a few groups and I was done. Very occasionally I’d do a little crop, or a little adjustment after the fact, but rarely.

Then in March I discovered post production, and every photo was hauled in to Photoshop for adjusting of levels and curves and brightness and exposure. I started reading a couple of Scott Kelby books and figured out how to paint with light and use textures for layers and was blown away by how much fun I could have manipulating a photo. Then in early April I started shooting in RAW, and I was taking dozens, sometimes even hundreds of photos each day — all of which had to be reviewed and sorted, and then a couple of them selected for more labourious adjustments in Photoshop.

It was too much.

For one thing, I just don’t have that kind of time every single day. For another thing, I was getting extremely frustrated with every shot. I was suddenly aware of what my photos *could* look like, if only I could pry open Photoshop’s inscrutable tools and force it to do my bidding. But of course, I simply don’t have time to stop and learn how to do it properly. What I’d been doing — skimming through Kelby’s books and plucking out the occasional tutorial — works to a certain extent, but not when you’re trying to find the time between hauling your pre-toddler off the bookshelves he’s just scaled and empting the dishwasher and feeding the dog and, well, you know.

The other main reason I was getting frustrated is because I have made friends with some supremely talented people on Flickr and quite honestly, found my own work suffering by comparison. Beloved kindly pointed out that most of them are, in fact, professional photographers (and some very very talented amateurs!) and I am, at best, a dilettante. At least last time, when I was feeling anxious about getting my pictures in Explore, I could step back and see how ridiculous it was to be pining for esoteric bragging rights conferred by some random set of online intergers. This is more fundamental — the central question of whether my pictures are “good enough” and how to make them better. How to make them better without neglecting everything else that’s important in my life, that is.

Sigh. It’s been a lifelong motif for me: I’ve decided I want to do something, and now I want to be very good at it. Right now. Immediately. Why is it taking so long? Oh, and I must be good every single time, too. And I wonder where Tristan gets his perfectionist anxieties from?

So in the end, I didn’t quit. I’ve scaled back where I can, though. I’m back to shooting in jpeg for everyday, and I’ll switch to RAW on days when I know I’ll have more time to play. I’m trying to limit the post-processing and stick with whatever comes SOOC – straight out of the camera – wherever possible. And mostly, I’m trying to get out of my head and stop being so hard on myself.

This is the picture I took the day after I decided to quit and then not to quit. It’s a picture I’d been toying with in my head for a while, and frankly, I think it’s great. Nothing like success to buttress a faltering ego. It’s another try at shaped bokeh – the little music notes are actually just white LED Christmas lights in the background, and they have that shape because I’m holding a card with a music note cut out of it over my lens.

(Of course, it made me a little twitchy that this one didn’t garner enough attention to possibly be recognized by Explore, because I think it’s actually better than the one that did make Explore, but I was mostly able to repress that line of thinking and just enjoy the fact that I took a pretty picture.)

This next one was for the monthly scavenger hunt. The expression is priceless, but the colour is really messed up. Our laptop is set too bright, and all the manipulating I’ve been doing with the RAW images looks great on the laptop but looks awkward on other screens. Another reason to get back to basics, I guess.

(After that first face, by the way, he loved the lemon. No babies were harmed in the shooting of this picture!)

Here’s the rest of this week’s photos — kind of uninspiring, IMHO, but there’s always next week.

(We were at Hogsback Falls on Sunday afternoon and there were two maniacs KAYAKING down the falls, from the bridge right over the main drop. And I thought Project 365 was a harrowing hobby!)

So it seems like every week I have some new issue I’m sorting out with regard to this project. Are you guys at all interested in these philosophical ruminations on my motivations, or should I just put up the pictures and get out of the way, and keep my nouvelle-artiste angst to myself?