The End/Beginning

Whoa.  So I realize I kind of fell off the map after I finished my 365 photo project.  That was really never my intention.  I meant to end things with a bang, meaning lots of facebook posts, flickr commentary, and even a big blog post about how it felt to have accomplished a whole year of photography and what I thought I'd learned in the process.  Things did not go as planned, however, and I found myself scrambling at the end of 2013 with unexpected travel and serious health news in the family.  It didn't seem right to be shouting from the rooftops how awesome it felt to have accomplished such a huge personal goal, so I kept the media blitz to a couple quiet announcements for those who had been so encouraging through the whole process.

Now that plans are underway for addressing the health stuff and the travel has slowed down, I wanted to take some time to update those out there who might be wondering "What the heck happened and when will there be more photos??"  Some people have even asked me whether I'll be starting up a new photo-a-day project soon.  The answer to that is a big fat "NO!"  While I still think about photography all the time, I have no desire to get myself into the situation again where I wake up every morning with a sense of doom and foreboding.  Don't get me wrong, the 365 was a lot of fun at times, and I'm so glad I did it, but the pressure I put on myself to create something I could be proud to post on the internet every day was a huge burden that I don't wish to take up again.  I'm much more content having the time to think through ideas, make plans to execute them, and wait for the appropriate time to do so. :)

For those who don't follow my flickr photo stream and only read my very sporadic blog posts (I don't know who you might be, but thanks for checking in), here's my final photo from my 365 project:

This one is meaningful to me because it was taken in the same location as my photo from day 1.  I wrote a big spiel over on flickr about how awesome my husband was for putting up with me through the whole project and for consenting to do this final photo shoot with me in the freezing cold.  I sincerely doubt whether I would've gotten through the whole year without his love and support.

Since the fateful day of January 31, 2013, I have been itching to get back out and create new images, but I've also had some other exciting developments to share with you.  For starters, I entered a contest on Flickr before Christmas, and one of my photos was chosen as one of 12 winners from over 63,000 entries!  It was so encouraging to put something out there that I really like and had a fun time shooting and get such a positive response.  Here's my winning entry:

And here's where you can see a gallery of all the winners: Flickr12Days (hopefully available by 2/16/14)

In other big news, I'll be participating in an international juried show of female artists in the second half of February and the first half of March.  Included in this will be a talk about artistic process given by myself and one other artist.  To help illustrate what I do, I created a video showing the highlights of my editing process in fast forward.  Now I just have to think about how to fill the rest of my speaking time with non-pretentious-but-still-impressive-sounding artsy talk. :)

Hopefully I'll have some news to share about how the show and the talk go once those are under way.  After that, I'll be the featured artist in a local college's annual art show.  I'm excited to see the work that the students have to share with the community and to get some feedback from them about what I do.  I'm determined to make blogging a bigger part of my artistic outreach, so check back for updates about all these fun events!