Project 365?

With the approaching New Year there has been a lot of talk on photography forums and similar venues about Project 365. This is a common New Year’s resolution among photographers during which you take (at least) one picture a day for a year. In one instance the project intrigues me: i would end up with an entire year of my life documented in one really giant photo essay. In another it intimidates me: carrying a camera is a bit of a hassle and being tied to it every single day for a year seems daunting. (On the other hand i definitely need to carry my camera more often if i’m going to grow in my photography in any significant sense.) Then there will be days where i won’t be inspired at all, days when i’m traveling, or days when i’m sick, and i just won’t want to mess with trying to find a good image. I could just take a crap shot on those days, but then if i’m just going to take 365 crap images do i  really need to spend a whole year doing it? I’m also afraid that the essay i end up with will be tediously boring. Just think about all those people who took a picture of their face everyday for a year? Are those great images that are fun to look at? But then if i’m going to be a photographer, and that is a very real possibility, then isn’t it about time i started taking pictures and embracing challenge?

**Update**

I decided to not do a project365, but to just take a picture everyday until i get tired of it… which may turn into a whole year, but it seems unlikely. In any case you can view the photos here.

Why Christmas Frustrates Me

Christmas. That great time of year characterized by family gatherings, excellent food, beautiful decorations, and gifting. As far as i can tell we give gifts at Christmas to honor and remember God’s gift of Christ to us. Awesome! The problem comes when you take into account the fact that it’s people who are trying to give the gifts.

Fact: people in general aren’t particularly good at gifting.

In my selfishness i’m way more likely to know what i want or could use than what might make good gifts for my friends and relatives. Even if i do think of something good, what are the chances that it conforms to my rather restricted budget? Turns out the difficulties i run into with gifting are a bit on the common side and they’ve resulted in two main problems:

1. Buying bad gifts
How many Christmases have you had? And what percentage of the gifts you’ve received have gone unused, wasted, or stored away in some attic until the next Ebay purge? It’s a sad truth that a lot of  times people buy stuff that we don’t really want and can’t or won’t use. All this waste is bad economics 101. It’s also bad for the spirit, sowing discontent in the recipient and hurt feelings in the giver.

2. Asking for a list
Generally employed by parents and grandparents on children, this seemingly workable solution asks for all sorts of trouble. You, the loving parent, want to make your child happy and get him something he will love. You’re afraid of problem #1, especially seeing as the child probably isn’t mature enough to be understanding and accept bad gifts with thankfulness, so you just come right out and ask him what he wants. The child then sits there and thinks of all the things he doesn’t have that he would like to. Discontent much? Then on Christmas morning, since he told you what he wanted, he’s expecting some assortment of those items to be under the tree. If the new Legos  pirate ship was at the top of his list, there’s a pretty good chance there’s a new Legos pirate ship wrapped in pretty paper for him. You’ve just turned “God has blessed me, so i will bless others with voluntary giving” into an obligatory business transaction. You also taught your kid entitlement.

So what do i do with all of this? One half of me wants to rebel, to refuse to put up with the degradation of a holiday thatshould be awesome, that should be full of thanksgiving and general goodwill. I want to refuse to make a Christmas list, to tell people to just give cash to a charity instead (hmm that’s actually kind of a good idea). I mean it’s not like i actually need any more stuff in my life.

But the other half of me is more Ferengi-minded (read selfish). It thinks, “Hey these people want to spend money on me. It will make them happy to buy me stuff and they’re not likely to be sold on the charity idea, so i might as well get something good out of the whole deal.” This thought means that i go ahead and make the list; i get stuff that i probably would have bought eventually anyway, and the whole holiday turns into more of a filled order than an exercise in generosity and love.

Finals Week

Biology on the Windows

Survival Package

Music Theory

Lightweight

As i walked out of class into a light drizzle today i overheard a guy say, “I never wear shoes. Don’t you know that by now?” and a girl reply, “Never? Not even when you go downtown?” My heart lept  at the familiarity of a conversation i’ve had almost verbatim countless times, and i eagerly glanced toward the guy’s feet….which were housed in brown, size ten, Rainbows.