Degema Travel Every Story is a Journey. Every Journey has a Story.

I really enjoy taking pictures. I’m good at it, and it has enough of a technical side to keep my nerdy side entertained while my artistic side gets a much-needed opportunity to stretch its legs. For that reason, I decided to do a Project52 for the first time last year.

Project52, in case you’re unaware, is simply publishing one photo every week. This forces you to take more pictures – at least 52 more per year, obviously – and that gives you practice. Photography is one of those arts where you noticeably improve the more you do it, which is why comparing my first ham-fisted flailings when I was first learning to the work I now get paid for is really quite embarrassing.

It proved to be quite a challenge. Making myself go out and take on an additional photo assignment each week very quickly collapsed into just posting up the best photo I had taken that week, which was often one I’d taken for work anyway. Even working on that system, I still missed two weeks – one through sickness and another through laziness.

The challenge did have a big benefit for me and my photography. It made me look twice at my images and I saw a huge improvement from Week 1 to Week 52.

This year, I’ve decided to shake up the formula. When I first started my 2015 Project52, another blogger contacted me when I was asking for ideas for a theme for the week. She stopped bothering after a few weeks when I stopped bothering to ask because I rarely had the energy to follow it through.

However, I remembered her themes and, when it came time to launch Project52 2016, I decided to…let’s say “be inspired by her”. That’s a much nicer way of saying “steal her idea”.

I don’t think it counts as really “stealing” if I give credit, and she certainly deserves it. So, check out Amy Dingler’s Marvelous Mommy blog and her dedicated photography site on these links. Both are well worth a look as she certainly has some skills!

Amy ran a Project52 last year with the following pre-determined themes, which I’ve decided to follow as closely as possible this year:

Rules

Last years’ project ended up being a bit of a mess at times because I failed to lay down any precise regulations for what was and was not permitted. I never like to make the same mistake twice, so:

1. Stick as close to a logical interpretation of the theme as possible.
2. The photo must be taken that week, between 12:01am on Friday morning and 11:59pm on Thursday evening (because 2016 started on a Friday).
3. Photos taken during work assignments are permitted, so long as they match the theme.
4. If a week is missed, it is missed. Themes cannot carry over and “just any good picture” cannot be substituted.
5. The picture must have been taken by me, though any camera equipment is admissible.

Let’s see how long I can keep it going this year… Welcome to Project52 2016!