366 Snaps Outtakes

A year ago it had snowed overnight. So I wandered around the yard taking photographs. All in all this was one of my better sets. ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . 366 Snaps project discussion and stats for December 29 .

A year ago it had snowed overnight. So I wandered around the yard taking photographs. All in all this was one of my better sets. ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . Number of project photos taken: 32 Title of " roll :" Covered with Snow Other photos taken on 12/27/2012: I'd apparently learned my lesson about photographing birds with the FujiFilm camera. This time I dug out the D300 and its long lens, and got far more satisfactory pix .

A year ago it had snowed overnight. So I wandered around the yard taking photographs. All in all this was one of my better sets. ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . 366 Snaps project discussion and stats for December 29 .

Last December 28 I went looking for a photo in one last small town--Potterville, as it happens. I'd tried this before, on July 10 , but that hadn't worked out. This time worked better, and the 366 Snaps shot shows what "downtown" Potterville looks like. Around the time I moved to the area someone sponsored a study to determine whether Potterville should reorient itself to acknowledge that most of the town's businesses were actually along Lansing Road. As far as I know, nothing ever came of the study. The businesses remain where they were, and the central business district mostly consists of Gizzard City . And the grain elevator. ========== The Hartels were early settlers in the Potterville area--in fact, one of the main county roads is named for the family. Here's their barn, and part of their road. ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . Number of project photos taken: 21 Title of " roll :" Potterville & Hartel Other photos taken on 12/28/2012: none.

It end was near. A year ago I took one last little tour through Mulliken for 366 Snaps . First I visited the cemetery--took boring photographs--and then wandered the town's streets. This great porch, just north of the tracks, is one of the village's best features. ========== The photo I posted to 366 Snaps was shot from the south end of Ionia Street, looking towards Hoytville. There used to be a soft-serve ice cream stand in that lot, but it failed before I moved to town and was torn down--just before the building collapsed--a few years back. Now the local kids have built a short BMX track on the lot. By this point I'd recalled the things I loved about the FujiFilm F10 camera. Within its limits, it's a great camera. ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . Number of project photos taken: 21 Title of " roll :" Snow in Mulliken Other photos taken on 12/29/2012: none.

" When All Else Fails, Find a Way to Shoot the Trellis ." I knew going in that I'd be photographing the trellis for 366 Snaps last December 30, but that didn't stop me from taking pix of the new snow here and there around the yard. But mostly I photographed the trellis, from near and far, from inside the house and outside, from every angle I could imagine. ========== So, Joel: What's the point of 366 Snaps ? It's best to see the project as a journal. The point was, and is, the photographs. I started the daily-photo project on a whim, and wasn't really sure I intended to complete it. By May it was clear I'd finish the set, and by September I knew I'd only miss days if outside events intervened. The point was never to practice specific techniques, or to better my craft, or to amass a portfolio. The black & white photography effort had some of those objectives, but that was (in my mind) a separate decision from the daily photo intention, and actually predated it. On the other hand, learning things and improving my photographic technique were probably inevitable consequences of the project. But at no point were they the purpose. Much the same can be said of the change-cameras-every-month decision: My intention was to force some variety on myself, but anything I learned by doing so was incidental to just taking photographs . Of course I did learn things from the camera changes. I've tried to mention those in my commentaries. Other photographers have used photo-a-day projects to learn techniques and to force creativity. These reasons are certainly legitimate. They just weren't my reasons. ========== What did you learn from the 366 Snaps project? I got pretty good at processing photographs in Bibble Pro (rebranded as Corel Aftershot Pro ). I'd likely not have learned that software nearly as well without the daily need to process a batch of pix. I gave a lot of thought to how I frame photographs, and to how that differs from other photographers' methods and preferences. This was both an unexpected byproduct and a useful experience. I also got better at the "merely technical" aspects of photography. I had a decent technical grounding--I'd been taking photographs with good cameras since my Vietnam tour--but the daily photography grind often forces you to attempt things you'd not otherwise try. This was reinforced by my purchase of the extremely quirky Nikon 1 V1. In truth, learning to use the V1 well did more to improve my photography than anything I've ever tried, with the possible exception of purchasing my original Minolta SR-T 101. Since my most common photographic subjects were the village and the local farms, I got to be very familiar with their photographic potentials. This was, on the whole, the most fun part of the project. It was a good year. I'm glad I did it. ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . Number of project photos taken: 36 Title of " roll :" One Last Trellis Shot Other photos taken on 12/30/2012: none.

I didn't know, when I started this project, that it would develop into a two year commitment--one to take the photographs, and a second to try to explain them. The building's the local Masonic temple, which is a rather ugly structure wrapped in tin siding. It sits on the edge of Mulliken's downtown park and presents park visitors with a large and forbidding wall, broken only by a door, a single window, and this fire escape. I'd decided months before that the escape would be the last 366 Snaps photo subject. So a year ago I headed downtown to find a couple dozen photos from a variety of angles. Please take note of the ice.... ========== A Photo a Day: advice * Set some simple rules. Just getting out there to take a photograph is hard, some days. Adding a layer of complexity is unwise. * Take photos early in the day. You may well take/post a better photograph later in the day, but at least you'll have something to work with if the day heads south. * Budget time. Between taking the photographs and processing them I usually spent 45 to 90 minutes each day on 366 Snaps . Some days were quicker, of course; some were slow. * Create sub-projects. These give you fallbacks for the dull days. * Scout out locations. Every day. These give you fallbacks for the dull days. * Experiment. Be creative. This goes without saying. But it means different things to different photographers. * Boredom is the enemy. Shoot anyway. * Busy-ness is the enemy. Shoot anyway. * If you miss a day, keep shooting anyway. This isn't a test, it's a project. * The last month is hard. Everyone I've followed during a daily shoot project reports this. I'm confirming it. * Some days you won't be happy with your daily photo. Those days you need to just go with what you've got. And learn from the mistake. ========== Would I do it again? Yeah. With even fewer rules. But not starting tomorrow. I've got some non-photographic projects I've been neglecting. ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . Number of project photos taken: 24 Title of " roll :" Fire Escape Other photos taken on 12/31/2012: I spent much of the day playing with a lens adapter--attaching various Minolta lenses to my Nikon D300. The results were interesting, but in the end I concluded it wasn't a gain as my Minolta lens kit's much like my Nikon lens kit.

There's a third settlement--besides Mulliken and Hoytville--on Mulliken Road. Gresham's got this excellent church, and a few houses, huddled at a corner out in the middle of nowhere. ========== Always take insurance shots, because not all ideas succeed. Had a plan for a 366 Snaps photo a year ago, but it didn't work out. I'd followed a buggy down the road a few days before, which reminded me that we've Amish neighbors. So I went looking for an "Amish" photograph. No luck. I found a couple good photo opportunities at the school, but I was still fighting with the camera and the results were poor. So my project pic became one of the insurance shots, of the Gresham church. Here's another. ========== This photograph is an outtake from my 2012 photo-a-day project, 366 Snaps . Number of project photos taken: 37 Title of " roll :" Around Gresham, mostly Other photos taken on 12/4/2012: none.