Image shot with F.Zuiko 38mm f1.8 and edited with Vintage Film Lightroom presets
Another month down, another 30 photographs taken and uploaded for the #leesixtyfive project.
That means it’s time for another blog post rounding up how it’s been going.
The short answer to that is ‘much like the first 30 days’.
So what, if anything, have I been able to take from the second leg of my 365 project?
The short answer to that is ‘a few things’.
The longer answers – the ones that can help you with your own 365 project – follow these few images (that you’re more than welcome to go and like, thank you very much).
365 project, 20-mile march
I’m not comparing street photography to an Antarctic trek but hear me out.
The 20-mile march refers to a strategy used by Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian who led the first successful expedition to the South Pole and back.
Robert Falcon Scott, an Englishman, led a rival expedition. They arrived at the Pole over a month later than Amundsen and died on the return leg.
The reasons for the expeditions’ respective outcomes are numerous, but one oft-mentioned factor is how much ground each would cover in a day.
In good weather, Scott’s team would slog for anything up to 60 miles. And when the weather was bad, they’d rest up in their tents, ready for another long haul once it cleared.
Amundsen’s party was more consistent.
Every day they would cover 20 miles. While undoubtedly being difficult in bad weather, it was still doable.
When the weather was good, limiting themselves to a relatively easy 20 miles left them in much better condition to attack the next day than Scott’s team.
Whatever it is you’re making, creating or building, that consistency is king. Don’t stop, but don’t burn out either.
A photograph a day, i.e. the very essence of a 365 project, is very achievable. Even when the weather is bad.
But it’s amazing how quickly they build up into something more.
There’s no way I’d have made 60 photographs in the last 60 days if I wasn’t sticking to the plan.
Remember your 365 project #hashtags
From one of the greatest stories and achievements ever told, to Instagram hashtags?
Oh yes I did.
Chasing likes isn’t the point of this 365 project, but that doesn’t mean I want to be shouting into a void either.
Garnering some new followers as we go deeper into it would be nice. For now, though, the Instagram engagement hasn’t seen any extraordinary changes.
The only time it really varied was when I posted and forgot to add any hashtags.
An hour later, I couldn’t understand why the photograph had only got about 2 likes.
I knew it wasn’t the best image I’d ever published, having tiredly taken it in the fading light of a Saturday evening commute home.
But still, 2 likes?
I then realised and added the hashtags but it was too late. It got a few more likes but the moment was gone; as was, I presume, a lot of the post’s visibility in people’s feeds or searches.
Or maybe it just wasn’t that good a photograph.
As the person who took it, I cannot say.
See what you think here (and give it a like, thank you very much).
The patience and bigger picture of your 365 project
I touched on this in the #leesixtyfive Photographs 1 – 30 post but it’s worth repeating.
Despite how nice it is to get a few Instagram likes, the most important thing with your 365 project is to stick at it regardless.
To look at the bigger picture and have the patience to see it through to the end.
Once you’ve finished it and can look back on the 365 photographs as a body of work and not as a collection of standalone images, you’re not going to care if the one you made on the 3rd of June or the 28th of November or any other arbitrary day got fewer likes or ‘great shot’ comments than you’d hoped.
Remember why you’re doing this and who for.
For me, the short answers to those questions are ‘to create something I’m going to be proud of’, and ‘me’.
People talk about what Amundsen and Scott achieved as explorers. Nobody cares how good the food they were knocking up in camp was.
Think about your 365 project in kinda the same way.
Today’s photograph may be below par but, so long as you keep doing the 20-mile march, the end result has a chance of being something special.
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