How I Spent my Summer Vacation

I started back to school last week, after having the summer off. In my world, having the summer off means I only have to be a mom and work, I don't have to be a mom, work and go to school. In fact, Glenn, my husband is going back to school as well. And in one of his classes, he got the classic "What I Did Over My Summer Vacation" assignment. So he went through my photo file to find some examples to use in his project. And as he went through them, I found myself watching over his shoulder, looking at them again, looking at them through his eyes.

A little background here. On January 1 of this year, I started what is probably one of the biggest projects I've ever done, not including raising children or getting a degree. I decided, after a few months of owning a digital camera, to embark on what they call a 365 project, meaning that I proposed to take at least one picture every day for a year. As of today I am almost exactly 66% of the way through this project and have accumulated well over 3000 photos. In all honesty, I've missed three days of that 240 some days but I'm not going to get too fussed about that because I had really good excuses, for all but one of those days. That one day I was just really tired.

I am not a photographer. I mean, I am a photographer, in that I take photos, but I'm not one of those people that obsesses about, or even really understands things like F-stop. I own a middle of the road point-and-shoot that I really like, and I'm constantly doing things like trying to take a close up of a flower with the "landscape" function on. In fact, until we bought this camera, if photos were seconds, my body of work would cover about a minute and a half. And that's for my entire life. Some 44 years. As part of my degree, last semester I took an Intro to Digital Photography class where I learned that I really have a lot to learn. Especially about tripods. But I am an enthusiastic amateur.

All of this explanation is not to excuse my work. I'm pretty proud of a lot of my photos. Some days I get so many pics I like that it's hard to choose one to represent the day. Other days it seems like I bail, taking utter drivel, only to come back later as I'm reviewing them and find something that I like, at least enough to be able to choose one for the day.

I've learned a great deal from this project. I always knew the world was a pretty amazing place, but now I look at it even more closely, noticing things that I might not have seen before.

I've come to appreciate the beauty of deconstruction, because it adds interest to the scene...
I've learned more about composition than I ever thought possible, mainly by being disappointed in my own, but also by taking many shots of one subject, looking for just the right composition...

I've begun to notice the sky much more than I ever did in the past (and being an artist, I really do notice a lot already...)
I appreciate the vitality of movement...

the grace and beauty of pattern...

and the secrets of detail...
I love to find great reflections...
I've learned that children often have a grace that goes unnoticed...
I've discovered the beauty of the golden hour...
and that polar bears laugh...

And mainly I've discovered how much I love to take pictures. How important it has become to me. Will I keep taking a picture every day after this project is over? I find that unlikely. But I will continue to bring my camera with me, ready for that one picture...


And of course, to be ready for the assignment about what I did over my Summer Vacation.