Day 366/366

Well holy shit, I present to you my last photo of Project 365 Year Two. I’ve been counting down, kicking and screaming the whole way, and yet it’s still hard to believe that I’m done.

Since I started the year with an homage to my first photo from round one, it seemed fitting to end the year with this, an homage to my last photo last time.

2008 was an interesting year, and this project has seen me through some rougher times to what are now awesome times. At the beginning of the year, I was still reeling from my car accident, trying to find my place in my new career, and getting out of a not-so-great place, relationship-wise. But now! I’m happier than I ever have been as a librarian, building my new career and figuring out what I like best. I’m happily living alone, even if I’m not trying as hard as I claim to learn how to cook more than just pasta. I have made so many really great friends this year (online and in real life), friends who I am beyond happy to have in my life and who have helped me through crappier times, whether they know it or not. And there’s the other matter of a burgeoning relationship, one that is very, very good and that makes me very, very happy.

But even more than that, 2008 has seen me learn even more about myself as a photographer. I know I said last time that I see the world through different eyes, and this second year of daily photos has made that even more true. I’m constantly surprised and proud of photos I’ve taken (although surely it’s still a small percentage) and as much as I’ve whined these past few months, taking photos has really become a big part of who I am and how I see myself in the world. So this dumb project may be over (again), but I can’t imagine NOT taking photos every day. They just won’t be numbered anymore.

Thank you to all of you, my flickr friends, for cheering me on, and inspiring me, and letting me copy off of you, and teaching me new ways to look at things and use my camera. And thank you to my real life friends (although the two groups overlap so much now) for following along and listening to me complain and being the subject of so many photos. And the family, too, because you have no idea how very much I love that you’ve bookmarked the link to my photos just so you can look in at what I’m doing.

And because I couldn’t resist more statistics, here’s Project 365: 2008, by the numbers:
12 photos of stripes
31 photos of me
45 photos of food
11 photos of beer
32 photos taken in or of my car
6 photos of tea
21 photos of flowers
6 baseball or Mets related photos
16 photos of shoes
32 photos of the sky
7 photos of fall colors
9 photos of holiday lights
8 photos taken in New York City

I’m a little more than twenty days away from finishing my second year of Project 365. I find this to be an incredibly awesome thing, because the fact that I am this close to completing another entire year of photos is a pretty big deal. (Of course, just the fact that I’ll be done and can stop stressing about it is equally awesome.) I have done a whole lot better this year; I’m happier with more of my photos, and I can honestly say that (knock on wood) I haven’t missed a day, other than one or two that may have been taken just after midnight. This taking a photo every day has become a pretty big part of how I operate, how I think, who I am. So naturally, being the over-thinker that I am, I’m chomping at the bit, getting myself all worked up about what I’m going to do NEXT.

Here’s the thing: two years (with a few months in between) of daily photos is a lot of work. It’s exhausting. I’m ready for a break. However, I also know from last year that it won’t be very long before I’m feeling the urge. It’s become too much a part of my life to just… stop. But I’m putting this out there now, Internet: there will be NO YEAR THREE without at least a six month break. You have my permission to punch me if, in a month or two, I start talking crazy. Just direct me to the set of photos I’ve tagged “Project365 Can Bite Me What Was I Thinking Seriously? Year Two?” or the ones tagged “help we’re struggling we’ll never make it uuuughhhhh year two” to remind me about how much of a grind it was.

So the next logical question becomes: so what should I do instead? A few of my fellow Project365 alumns moved on to more manageable projects like 52 Weeks – some have taken self-portraits once a week (don’t really know if I’m too keen on that…) or found a tree and documented its changes each week (this is so cool, but I don’t have any pretty trees nearby). Some are even doing 100 Strangers, in which over time, you try to find 100 stranges to take portraits of. That’s just crazy. I’d like to get better at taking pictures of people, but I am usually crippled by shyness. Somehow it seems like if I haven’t yet forced my boyfriend to let me take pictures of him, I’ll be completely lost taking pictures of strangers.

The funny thing is that I was talking about this with Dan the other day, about how I was so stressed! About picking a new project! Because I want to start it in the new year so it’s even and orderly and neat! I’m running out of time! What should I do?! And with his calm, easy-going logic, he just goes, “Why do you have to do a project at all? Couldn’t you just decide what you feel like doing? Like if one month you decide to work on photos of a particular thing, then you just… do it. And change it when you feel like doing something different.”

Oh. So… I don’t have to have, like, an Official Project with a Group To Post To or Rules? Huh. Imagine that.

So anyway, I am still trying to decide. I like having a project, a neatly organized and numbered set of photos to look back on. But maybe he’s right. Maybe I don’t need an Official 2009 Photo Project. Maybe I’ll just resolve to let go a bit, and just continue taking pictures every day (or almost every day) and see where it takes me. Do you think my organizational tendencies could handle it?