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Doing a Project 365 has been a very different experience than I thought it would be initially.

At first, I figured I’d snap a shot of whatever every day and make a collection of photos on my Flickr, if I managed to keep up with it at all. Two months in, though, I’m already reaping the benefits of a forced schedule. I’m a terribly inconsistent person, and this project is helping me find a bit more routine in my life as well as my photography. In terms of photos, I seem to hold my 365 shots to a higher standard than the random snaps I take throughout the day (though, admittedly, a few of those have snuck into the project as a result of my own laziness). I find myself up for an hour or more some nights trying to get the light to cast just the right shadow on the buttons of the controller, or falling asleep clone-stamping specks of dust out of the crevices of my rarely-cleaned controllers. In many ways, the perfectionist side of my personality is battling the lazy side, and in my eyes that’s a good thing.

Having to take a photo every day can turn tedious sometimes. Often, I can’t think of what to shoot on a given day. 365 unique shots is a pretty daunting goal if you stand back and look at it! I find myself leaning on product photography a lot of days, because those seem to be the shots I really have the most fun with. Going out to take headshots for a friend is fun and all, but there’s something inimitable about sitting there with my macro lens and an off-camera flash, trying to bounce the light to create the perfect scene in a small, but relatively controlled environment. I have a lot of fun making it look like my shots were done with more than one Speedlite, too (which they definitely are not). Sheets of glossy white paper make great reflectors!

I originally sat down to write a fifty-word-or-so preamble to the picture I’m posting here, but sometimes I end up rambling. And really, why let those extra four hundred words go to waste?

At the top of this entry is a picture of my oldest friend. He’s stuck with me through the good times and the bad, and has always known just how to make me feel better when I need it the most. When compared to some of the newer friends I’ve made in recent years, he may seem a bit simple (some may call him two-dimensional), but I think that’s part of his charm.