in march 2010, i started a picture project with my sister where each day i picked a word for us to photograph that day. i thought we'd do it for a few weeks and then move on to something new. i ended up photographing a word-of-the-day for a year. i posted the word on facebook in the morning, shot the pics throughout the day and posted the images on facebook at the end of the day.
it changed my life.
i've been a photographer since i was a teenager - that's about 40 years now. i started getting paid for it in my twenties, in retail portraiture and have done that for over thirty years. but i don't think i thought of myself as a 'photographer' until i did my photo hunt word of the day.
i always thought of myself as a visual person. but i saw the entire world with new eyes. every day.
if i drove the same roads day after day,
i saw different things because there was a different word-of-the-day.
i grew as a photographer and it felt like i learned new things daily.
many facebook friends joined in, well over 100 people joined the photo hunt page.
we supported each other, kept ourselves going and had a ball.
then it ended.
i was lost for a while.
i think i wandered for a year, growing, but nowhere near as much as i had with the daily quest to take a good picture. in that wandering year, i followed different blogs and was fascinated by the amount of sharing that was happening online. it was a whole new world and i was addicted.
one blog leads to another and i spent hours following them all.
i was inspired!
but i wasn't shooting as much. i was bored with the same places, tired of photographing birds and squirrels, flowers and sunsets. i didn't know what to do to get back the joy that i'd found in the word-of-the-day.
finally, i signed on for kim klassen's 'beyond layers' online class.
it has been a blessing.
i am learning so much about photoshop, which has been great fun.
but i'm also learning things photographically and that has been fantastic.
and this week, the challenge involved a color of the day.
omg, i felt like me again.
go green :) on monday
tuesday's mellow yellow...
pretty in pink on wednesday...
and coincidentally, the facebook photo hunt group came back to life this week too!
we had a word of the day again. and it was making me see things again. i was actually overwhelmed with it all, and didn't get to post all the assignments.
but i shot them :)
it was great to be inspired AND then to do something with the inspiration!
thank you, kim klassen and xanthe
and all the photo hunt friends!
tuesday - window
wednesday - peace
thursday - spring
today's word is RED -
both the color of the day and the word of the day.
i am looking forward to a day of SEEING RED...
in a good way :)
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