brad nelson

I’m not generally one for New Year’s resolutions. They can feel so arbitrary and unattainable. In the past, I’ve said things in my head like, “I should play more music, or workout more”, etc. However, rarely does it motivate me to change my daily behavior.

Since college I’ve become interested in photography. It’s been a nice creative outlet that was different than running scales on my trumpet or playing the piano. Editing photos has a kind of meditative effect on me that I really enjoy. Lately I haven’t put the time towards it and I miss it.

Towards the end of December I decided to throw my hat into the ring of a photo-a-day project for 2012.I’m not doing this to publish 365 of the most amazing photos I’ve ever taken. Rather, I’d like to represent my year, day by day.

5 rules that I’m going to (attempt) to abide by:

1. Take a photo and make an effort to publish everyday (at the very least, don’t let the queue of unpublished photos back up too long).
2. Strive for at least 50% of all photos to come from cameras other than my iPhone, such as my GoPro or Canon T2i.
3. Only one photo per month of the following: my cats, my wife, dinner or work. (I don’t want to rely upon easy & obvious subjects.)
4. If a day is missed, that’s ok. Just don’t let it happen again for a while.
5. Minimal editing on each photo. No photoshop.

So far, I’ve mostly been following by the rules. I missed January 5th (gah!!). My cats, wife, food and work have all been represented in the first half of January. Probably strayed the most from #1, but that was because I was deciding where I wanted to publish.

Lets see how this goes …