52 Weeks ~ Choose Your Own Adventure (52/52)

RSiegel_Week52 - Choose Your Own Adventure

Here we are, at the final photo for my 2012 52-week photo project. The theme for this week was “Choose Your Own Adventure”, which the project hosts described as “take a picture of whatever you like”.

That offers a lot of latitude. A bit too much for me.

The truth is, I love having a weekly theme. I take pictures all the time of whatever I want, but what I loved about this project was the constraint of the theme, the requirement to focus my thoughts all week and train my eyes to look for things I’d ordinarily ignore, or to look at familiar things in a new way. I needed that push. I still do.

So, for 2013, I decided to set myself a new 52-week photo adventure, and my final photo for 2012 describes that adventure:

:: Once again, I’ll post a new photo every week to Flickr, and follow up with a corresponding blog post here. I’ll generally post to Flickr on Sundays, and try to write the blog post within a week of that posting.

:: Every other week, beginning with the first week (that’s this week), the photo will be of a letter of the alphabet (A, B, C, and so on).

:: Every week between the letter weeks, the photo will be in response to a word I choose at random from my Webster’s collegiate dictionary. Right now, I’m thinking of using an althethiometer to choose the random word, but, then again, I might just do it the old-fashioned way: stick a finger into a page and see where it lands.

This year, I’m also challenging myself to use my camera’s manual modes more often and I’ll be pushed to do this by a beautiful, new (manual focus) lens that M has given me. I’ve also finally made the move from iPhoto to Lightroom for organizing and editing the photos. I don’t do a lot of editing, but when I do, iPhoto frustrates the heck out of me.

So, there we are.

I’ve enjoyed every bit of the 2012 photo project, and am really excited to branch out on my own adventure. If any of you are interested in joining me, I’d be happy for the company, but if you prefer to just watch, that’s just fine, too. I’m thrilled to have you here either way.

You can see the weekly photos accumulate by viewing the 52 Weeks – 2013 Flickr set. You can get links to all of the project-related blog posts on the Fifty-two Weeks page (you can also get to this via the link on the left side of this page). And in case you’re wondering how my daily photo project (“I Snap Views”) is going, you can see that here.

Okay, now I need to get to bed. I’ve got an alphabet to start tomorrow.