Project Life 365
In my earlier go-rounds of college, throughout my art classes, I took photography courses. These were in film photography and while at times I loathed the long hours processing chemicals in the dark room, I did really enjoy shooting and developing. I gained knowledge and understanding to manually shoot and not rely on any auto settings from the start, to play around with the enlarger, and grasp editing with light. I like learning how things evolved from beginning to present to better unravel how they work, these classes gave me that. Through this comprehension, I have been able to grasp how to shoot technically. Through my painting and drawing practices, I am able to see subject matter as a composition.
When children arrived in our lives and travel became more prevalent, we decided a camera may be a good investment for my artwork, our family, and our travels. It became my easiest mode of expression. Hauling out painting supplies, sitting down to paint, and putting them away was becoming quite the task with little ones around, especially when they had ideas of schedules of their own. As they got bigger, they wanted to touch the paintings. All. The. Time. There was nowhere safe to keep my art supplies in the house. One day I left a small painting to dry on the piano and shut the door thinking no one could reach it (or notice it). Not five minutes later, the painting had tiny fingerprints on it and every key of the piano needed to be scrubbed.
My camera could be put in a safe bag on a high shelf and needed no prep or tear down. It could come with us on walks or bike rides. It could help record our days without interruption. And I was finding, as I used it more, it was helping to keep me present. I was not off thinking about something somewhere else. I was observing my kids and our surroundings, photographing what was right there.
So, in Sam’s first year, I decided I wanted to do a photo challenge. If I was going to have this nice piece of equipment, maybe I should be a little disciplined about using it and practice each day. So I found Project Life.
I don’t remember how I found it or how it happened to be that particular one that I chose. There are so many of them now, but I am so glad it was this one. It was a tremendous group of people involved. I met friends from all over the world through that photo challenge who I still chat with to this day. Linda in Sweden who writes books sent my niece a note when she was born. Carrie with her big, fluffy dog and fiance makes me so happy watching her wedding countdown and gorgeous photos from St. Louis. Allison met us in Touilleries when Jeff and I visited Paris and spoke to us on the phone for an hour and a half before our trip with advice on getting around. Watching Patty develop her painting style and post about her grandkids, Harry’s black and whites, Peter’s horses… there are so many more.
The prompts for this challenge felt insightful. The Project Life runners went on to write a book after the year. The participants were so disappointed to be done but we stuck together for years after. I sporadically searched my files over the last couple of years to see if I had saved the prompts. I am a digital packrat. I swore I had. Then, one day in December, I found them, tucked away in an old Dropbox file. I was thrilled. It was getting close to another January, just in time to start again, and honestly now that school was done, it was a good time to take up the photo challenge again. I was feeling this in so many ways.
My mom used to laugh because I would tell her my dreams when I woke up. I always thought they must mean something. Jeff listens to them now. I don’t know if he thinks it’s silly like my mom, but he quietly sits and listens like it is the most interesting story. I love him for that. I love him for a great many things, but that is one of them. While I was going to school for the last couple of years I had two recurring dreams. One involved a hotel with a swimming pool in the middle and lots of school kids. The other was that I went into houses I used to live in and suddenly would discover there were whole spaces I hadn’t realized were previously there. The whole time I lived there, there was a door or another part of the house that I just simply hadn’t seen. I read recently that this means you are gaining large amounts of knowledge or expanding your mind and your dreams reflect that in this way. So, perhaps dreams do mean something. Or maybe some whackadoo just hit the mark – who knows? I felt this one.
Over the time that I was in school, it makes sense that I was expanding my knowledge and mind exponentially. My fear was that wouldn’t continue when I graduated. Continued learning is a big goal for me. It always has been. While I am still considering further education, for now, I want to ensure I continue some of the disciplines and practices that will ensure I keep moving forward. So, I took up Project Life again, because I wanted to get back to my photography work.
Already, I am remembering not only how it grounded my practice but how it made me look at things more creatively. For instance when thinking of a “Sign of Winter”, the answer so easily could be, snow. However, I considered the hat and gloves on the heat vent, the oranges in the bowl on the table that we eat because they are in season, and I landed on the curtain that stands partially open to let any light in during the dreary days with all white behind it because the color of winter is white, the sky, the ground, all of it.
Part way into the month, as the memories started to roll in on Timehop, I suddenly realized, it has been exactly ten years since I did this challenge the first time. It filled me with a sort of bittersweetness. The boys were 4 and just a few months, and now they are 14 and 10. It will be interesting to see how time, experience, and perception change my photos. It will be interesting to see where this journey takes us as I continue to challenge and stretch myself.
