P4C: Photo Projects

An enjoyable way to improve your photography skills is participation in a photo project. There are two common projects within the Geocaching community -- the "12 of 12" and "Project 365." The 12 of 12 was started back in January 2006 by Chad Darnell as means to document a day in his life and he invited readers of his blog to join in. The goal was to have the submissions show how different people from all over the world live the same day in twelve photos on the twelfth day of each month. When done traditionally you'll end up with a little photo diary of your day to share with others. This year is the last for Chad Darnell's listings, but the project lives on in many other locations. We in the Geocaching community have our own version twice each year at Geocaching12of12.com. Each month many Geocachers participate and submit their sets to the Podcacher forums. I try to participate in this project when I can and it's a great exercise as well as being entertaining to look back at your previous sets to see what you were doing in the past. The March 12 of 12 is coming up shortly so perhaps you want to try pulling out that camera (cameraphones are especially good for this one as you always have it with you) and grabbing twelve photos of your day. The Geocaching 12 of 12 site has some good information on what to do (you just won't be able to submit your set to the Geocaching 12 of 12 site as that's not till June). You'll find it can be quite challenging to get all those images, but with practice you'll find that it gets easier to do better sets and those skills transfer well into creating both single and series of images.

September 12 of 12: Geocaching 12 of 12 by Darryl Wattenberg

Project 365 is a bigger commitment but a bigger reward. As you've likely figured out already this project aims to create a single image each day to represent your day. The first version I know of was done by Jamie Livingston through Polaroid photos. The result is an amazing and touching story of the final years in the life of this man who was taken by cancer in 1997. In the digital age it's become a much easier and less costly project which many have taken on. For 2010 Sonny of the Podcacher Podcast began his and invited Geocachers to do their own sets. The challenge with the Project 365 is to select one photo which best represents each day and to collect them into a group. This again gives to you an excuse and a mission to get out shooting. If you're looking to try your hand at a photo each day check out Photojojo's article and pick your day to start.

Either of these project or the many others out there will give you the chance to work on your photography skills. While it's important to push yourself to improve your skills but make sure that you have fun at it. When you're done have a look back though and you'll probably see an improvement in your images as well as a few things you'd forgotten from years back.

Text and images in this post are copyright 2010 by Darryl Wattenberg, all rights reserved.