If you spend much time in the film photography circles on Flickr or Instagram; spend any time listening to film photography podcasts; or, read your share of film photography blogs, then you’ve no doubt heard of annual photo projects. They go by lots of names: “365” (one shot per day for a year), “52 Rolls” (a roll of film per week for a year) — and I’m sure others as well — generally with the idea that you shoot with a specific camera and/or film regularly throughout the course of a year. Often they start with the new year, and they do indeed fit nicely into a new year’s resolution sort of framing. I decided in mid-May 2021 to jump-in, and managed to sustain the project for a time before I just couldn’t do it any longer. Then I started again on January 1, 2022, and simply couldn’t keep it going. The efforts taught me some things, just not what or where I expected.
If you’re human (and one hopes you might be), you probably understand the excitement of embarking on a new project to improve yourself in some way. Maybe it’s an exercise program to improve your health, or eating more sensibly to drop a few pounds, or perhaps it’s deciding to jump right into an annual photo project in an effort to improve your film photography chops. Maybe you want to better learn proper exposure, or you want to get better at seeing the world around you in photographic terms. Or perhaps you just want to master the one complicated camera that’s flummoxed you from the start.
These are all good reasons to shoot a picture a day for a year, or exhaust a roll every week over the course of a full 52 of those weeks, or other permutations of these ideas, like shooting a different camera every week for a year. There is a lot you can learn from the exercise.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted to learn when I set-out on my own “365” journey. I knew I wanted to use a single camera, and I chose one of my favorites, but one that I’d not shot with anywhere near as much regularity as I’d wanted: My beautiful, pristine Mamiya 645 1000S:
And I knew I wanted to use just one film: Ilford’s outstanding HP5 Plus, an ISO 400 black-and-white standard of sorts that’s been around in one formulation or another far longer than I’ve even been alive.
My general motivation was that it’s long felt like I don’t do enough shooting. Lack of time, lack of ideas, the burdens of working for a living, and the always competing demands of daily living always seem to conspire to work against my desire for creative expression with photography. It seemed as if “forcing” myself to take one photo each day, come hell or high water, was a great way to push myself.
At first, I managed to get in a groove, and successfully kept my daily shot as a priority. I’d made a list of subject ideas to keep in my back pocket — just in case I was in a rut on any particular day.
I didn’t pay that much attention to what I shot; things around the house, or around the yard, or whatever struck me as visually interesting.
Once I had the first roll of film done and processed, I set myself up with a cadence to post them to my personal Instagram account, one per day. And that too went well; for a time, anyway.
It didn’t take long for me to miss a day. Life’s usual burdens got in the way, or I simply forgot, or I was tired and said I’d do it the following morning. Then what started as an occasional faltering became a couple of days here, and a couple there. And then three days, four days, and more.
A couple of times, I said I’d get everything back on track, only to have it fall apart again. Finally, it became clear that I just didn’t have the necessary drive and stamina to keep up with it, and it was time to pull the plug.
I decided to try again, only this time, I’d align it with the beginning of a fresh, new year. So, when I started on January 1, 2022, I decided I wouldn’t pressure myself. I used a cheaper platform (my Minolta XG-1, using Ilford Delta 100), and I told myself that if I missed a day, or two, or ten, it didn’t matter.
The point would be to shoot 365 images by year-end, and how I got there wasn’t important. I could get ahead. I could fall behind and catch-up. It was my project, and my rules. And I wouldn’t add to my burden by even referring to the project, or posting stuff to social unless the image was great.
That, too, turned out to be a great idea in principle, but the execution failed miserably. Once you get a couple of weeks behind, the pressure the catch-up becomes too great, and in the end, I found it completely impossible to maintain the pace, even in its revised form, or even the motivation to bother.
As much I wanted — and continue to want — to shoot more, and more regularly, forcing the issue with some artificial commitment turns out to be something that’s just not for me.
What I Learned
When it comes to creativity, there really is a lot to be said for simply doing the work. I’ve often heard advice given to writers to just write every single day, no matter what. Make the time and space for it, and just do it, each and every day. If you draw, then at the very least, grab a pen and a scrap piece of paper and doodle something for a few minutes each day. If music is your thing, sit down at your instrument of choice, and play something — even if it ends-up being nothing more than scales on a piano, or strumming some chords on a guitar. You get the idea here.
That advice is often compared to physical workouts; to build the strength, you have to work the muscles. And while theories like that make good fodder for self-help books, I’m not sure that in a practical sense it’s all that helpful. Firing-up a word processor on a computer and pecking-out some arbitrary number of words every day might be reasonable in that domain, but picking-up a film camera and pointing it at something — anything — then pressing a shutter release button is a waste of expensive film, and I fail to see the point of the Nike-tagline-inspired just do it mentality.
To use another creative comparison, if you’re a painter, I can almost see the logic of forcing yourself to squirt some paint on a palette and dab some of it on a work-in-progress canvas. But photography doesn’t work that way. Each photograph is a complete work; there’s just no such thing as a partial photograph in any way that I can envision or embrace the concept. A subject must be chosen, and possibly traveled to. Perhaps a shot needs to be expressly set-up, maybe with lighting. Exposure must be calculated. The camera must be set-up, and the shot has to be composed. And then, of course, it’s captured. Going through those motions under duress isn’t fun for me, and I also don’t personally believe it’s productive or purposeful.
It seems clear that some people find genuine value in that exact process. Cameron Shaw, a UK photographer and friend of mine, has done multiple 365 projects, and went all-in for 2022 by doing it with expensive 4×5 sheet film on a large format field camera. Each shot requires even more work and forethought than I can imagine with his trusty Wista 45SP camera. Cam and I have spoken at length about the concept and the mechanics of it, and it’s clear it provides a certain structure and rigor, and does so in a form that adds value to his photographic creativity journey.
Quite frankly, I was hoping I’d have the same experience as Cam. That somehow, magically, that focus (bad pun) and energy and drive would just happen for me. Alas, it’s just not worked out that way for me. It’s also worth nothing that Cam has already stated that after multiple consecutive years of 365 projects, his project for 2022 will be his last for the foreseeable future.
Bottom Line
The bottom line is that not every creative journey is the same. I get the logic of just do it, and to be sure, photographs won’t ever be taken if, as photographers, we don’t get out a camera and indeed just do it. Perhaps if, as was the case at the end of 2019, I owned just ten cameras — one of which I hated — life would be much simpler. Instead, I regularly finish restoring a derelict camera, or finally have a chance to acquire something I’ve been lusting after for an extended period, and those camera beg for my attention as well.
Even as I finish this article, weeks after giving-up my 2022 attempt at this concept, I have no less than three 35mm cameras sitting on top of a dresser, each loaded with short, 15-exposure test rolls of bulk-loaded film, each one partially shot, waiting on the time, motivation, and subject matter to finish out their respective rolls to demonstrate that the camera repairs and restoration work I’ve done was in fact successful. And that’s ignoring both a Grafmatic loaded and ready, and a roll film adapter loaded and partially shot, both for my Graflex Pacemaker 23 Speed Graphic. Or the Agfa Record III loaded with a roll that despite is measly eight exposures remains only half shot after a few months. Or the… Well, you get the point.
Motivation can be tough to find. Inspiration can be tough to find. Perhaps it’s time to go read my own list of suggestions (do you have any to add to it?), and see if I can move the needle a bit. I’ve got the cameras; I’ve got the film. Surely this shouldn’t be so bloody difficult, right?
