2012 The Year of Creativity

In 2011, I joined the 365 Project. The idea was to take one photo a day and post it online to document your year. I like photography, but what I found out early on is that I like to edit photos more than take them. At least, that's how I felt when my subject matter was limited on the days when all I did was go to work and come home and I took pictures of the same places and things day after day. Before the project, I always took lots of pics when I went somewhere and did something interesting. I found myself missing days or weeks at a time, then when I would go out and about I'd take lots of new photos and fill in all the spaces. It felt like I was cheating the project that way.

I invited several of my friends to do 365 with me. Some of them were very true to the project and managed to post a photo every day, or at least rarely gap and fill in quickly. Some struggled like I did. Overall, I'm happy to say that everyone seemed to have a good time with it and it gave us an opportunity to be involved with each other's day to day lives and get together a few times this past year. Some of the Photo Squirrels (as we called ourselves because a few of the group's squirrel pics were so popular) are going to continue 365 this year, but I while I'll check in on them from time to time, I'm not.

For 2012, I am going to try to create something new each week. I'm going to be incredibly lenient with myself about what that means. I'll paint, knit, sew, take some pictures, cook, and do some remodeling projects around my house. Sometimes I may start a project one week and not finish it right away (I've already got a couple fairly large projects in mind that I know will take extra time to complete). That's just how it's going to be and I'm going to be ok with that.

So goodbye to the Year of the Camera and hello to the Year of Creativity.