Well, I’ve hit the one month mark on my 365 project (http://daves365challenge.wordpress.com) and will soon be entering into the most difficult time for it.  Winter!

I hate the cold and with winter fast approaching I’m going to have to put in extra effort to get my shots for the day.  Winter will provide some excellent opportunity for great shots, but the cold will be a factor to work against!

Personal projects are an awesome outlet for your creativity.  You can experiment in ways that clients may not be willing to when it’s their dime!  Of course, when it’s your dime you may often have to take short cuts to your goals due to limited budgets.  But all this can work together to make better imagery than if you had a massive budget and every tool at your disposal.

Personal projects don’t have to be difficult, year long endeavours.  They can be absolutely anything you want.  From spending an afternoon individually photographing every flavour of Jelly Belly jelly bean to spending your entire life cataloguing ever species of bird on the planet.   Some people have projects of photographing their dog once every day or keeping a record of their children’s lives (not on a daily basis).  One of my personal projects is to photograph dead trees that are on their own amongst living trees.  It’s not something I’m actively pursuing but when I’m out and about I’ll keep my eyes peeled for options.  After 8 years I think I’ve come away with about 5 or 6 images I like.  Here’s the first one, it measure 4′ x 4′.

The White Tree