After seeing the resurrection of a vintage Polaroid camera and finding family gold in the garage this week, I started rethinking just how much photography has changed, even since I was a teenager (Yes I know, it was not very long ago). The switch over to digital cameras armed with photoshop, lightroom, and aperture pretty much turns any average prosumer into a ‘photographer’, and it has also made us a bit lazy in terms of really setting up our shots.

It used to  be, the cost of film, processing, and time it would take to do it over again really made the photographer think before shooting away. These days, we test after the fact, taking multiple photos and uploading them to see which ones we would be happy with posting online.

And so came the idea for a photo challenge… What if we took this next week to really stop, think, and create a photo, instead of just snapping away? What if you only had ONE chance to take that picture? ONE shot to set up your white balance, color, lighting, and composition. The challenge is to take only one picture for the day. No over processing, no sharpening, just straight out of the camera goodness!

Are you up for it? Could you do it for 1 day? How about 1 week? Take the challenge and send me your best shot of the week along with commentary and I’ll post it to the challenge wall with a link back to you.

Go out, and be a photo ninja!

It seems like all of my fellow photo a day friends had the same idea this week. Everywhere I looked I was seeing similar shots, so I thought I’d open up a challenge to everyone else.

The Challenge should you choose to accept, is to uniquely capture: A BICYCLE!

My attempt at close up gear shot:

Paul Giunta saw beauty in his Day 167 project365 shot:

@paulusch captured this nice bike black and white image:

K Jordan Images had a nice follow up with this sepia toned lovely piece:

@GTRacer347 added this lovely throwback Scwhinn:

Possibly my favorite so far is Rudy Lopez‘s:

Another superb shot submitted! This one by Monica Sims:

Someone didn’t follow the rules… eh hemmm @john_jordan, I said BICYCLE

What is your take on this favorite pastime? Submit a link to your photo in the comments and I will display images in the challenge post.

I try and keep this saying close to my heart, to remind myself that age is only a number…

Today a friend confided, with frustration, that he felt like he was “falling behind his peers”. That his other friends were getting married, having families, and accomplishing big projects. He on the other hand, is turning 28, and feels like he has “done nothing”. This saddened me, because it seems to be a reoccurring theme I hear a lot. It made me wonder, who set these standards for ‘success’ we hold ourselves so highly to?

To me, success is being able to smile everyday and enjoy the journey. Each morning I get to wake up is a new opportunity for experiences, laughter and sharing stories with the ones I care about. It’s finding what I love to do,  and doing it. Because in the end you can’t take life too seriously, you’ll never get out alive!”

See now folks, this is why I love Project 365, or photo of the day (potd), or Flickr 365, or iphoneography, or whatever you want to call it. It is about community, inspiration, and pushing yourself to continue to get better or enhance your artwork and skills.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been inspired by viewing people’s photo projects. I gain ideas, or build off of concepts and really push the limits of my work, and I hope my pictures help to insight creativity in other’s projects. So when a chain of inspired photos occurred through my fave’s project’s, I thought how cool would it be to challenge everyone else to show me how they would envision the shot…

It all started with @paulgiunta’s Day 102 photo of his gear:

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I (@christawatson) felt inspired by this and wondered what it would look like if there was something behind the wide open glass:

My nifty fifty wide open

Paul Giunta's Day 102 | Wide Open

Then my always favorite, cool and quirky @joeyjoeyjoey decided to step it up with his interpretation:

AND THEN, had another one of Joey’s friend/fan @j00zt1n posted THIS photo:

So the Challenge? How would you do this shot differently? I’d love to see everyone’s take on this…

UPDATE! We’ve come full circle as Paul added his 2nd interpretation to the mix:

This photo is dedicated to my co-worker, Biddy (it’s a nickname of course), who feels like most of my ideas are really his. My only retort to that is we spend WAY too much time together at work and therefore there’s no telling anymore who came up with what… we just come up with some pretty good material most of the time– the following not being one of them. Since we work together in the Internet Marketing and Website/Production team, we always tend to get very strange yet somehow all too familiar requests:

—–

Manager: I need more leads for this month

Me: Ok, how much more can I spend?

Manager: Well, I don’t have extra budget…

—–

Manager: I need you to save this as an animated jpeg

Biddy: Uh….

—–

Manager: Turn that source off, it costs too much.

Me: [3 days of emailing vendors] OK, done

Manager: [2 days later] WE NEED MORE LEADS! Turn everything on!

—–

The list goes on and on (not a detailed list since my lovely marketing managers read this ) and every time we get that ridiculous email or request we look at each other in complete and utter surprise. And then we think to ourselves, “hey, why are we surprised?! Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?”

So now that we’ve given up on practicality and efficiency of our daily tasks, whenever one of these requests come in we used to say “Oh, now that’s a shocker…”, but now we just look at each other, throw out a signal and get on with it

“Shampoo is better, I go on first and clean the hair…

Conditioner is better, I leave the hair silky and smooth..

Oh,really,fool?! REALLY!

Stop looking at me, SCHWAN!”

He was begging for food...

Well folks, I guess it’s no secret that I succumb easily to peer pressure. I have decided at the very last moment that I am “All In” to another go at the 365 Project. Here’s a breakdown of Project 365 if you haven’t heard about it before.

So I don’t normally make New Years Resolutions, because I believe I should be setting goals all year round, but here is why I believe I could succeed at completing my Project 365 this time:

• I will be starting on Day 1 of the project, January 1st. Last year I started mid year, and it was easy to skip a day or 2.
• A LOT of my super cool awesome photog twitter and facebook friends will be joining in, including but not limited to:  @joeyjoeyjoey , @jonyag , @paulgiunta , @ljphoto , and @ice66 (well, ice is already on day 239) I expect you guys to keep me in line!
• I have been writing down ideas of what I want to take pictures of, so I have a pool of stuff to choose from
• I’ve decided to include more self portraits… but will not limit my 365 to only self portraits
• I now have a new home to host these pics (THEChrista.com!) and look forward to adding insight and commentary to them

So without further ado… Day 1

I'm All In

If you’ve never encountered a project 365 on Flickr, Twitter, or Facebook, you’re in for a real treat! In the simplest of terms, it is a photographer’s, or aspiring photog’s way of slowly torturing themselves one day at a time by having to take, process and upload a photo every single day of the year for 365 days. There are different reasons as to why someone takes on this project, but a lot of them include, building a portfolio, perfecting photographic skills, and challenging those creative juices. Most people decide to start their projects at the beginning of the year as some delusional New Year’s Resolution and of course it makes it easier to track progression. There are even sites and groups purely dedicated to documenting the hijinks of these crazy time consuming quests. (Check out Flickr’s group Project 365 or ShutterCal to see some).

I began on my journey in a different manner… basically a friend bullied me into it. Although this friend, who will remain nameless, eventually dropped out of this time consuming project, I have managed to continue shooting (even though the posting of them daily is somewhat questionable.)

My current Set:

My 365 Photo Set

Onto the reason why I brought up the project… It’s DECEMBER! Therefore all you ne’er do wells out there have a good month to think about whether you want to jump on this crazy photo-a-day bandwagon! I really hope you give this project the consideration it deserves. Although there are days (many) in which you will be cursing my name for ever mentioning it, the journey is beyond worth it in the people you will meet and the photos you will take!

Don’t forget, if you do decide to start, send me the link and I will be sure to check them out!