Photography has become a growing passion especially since I started using Instagram in June 2011 and also joined my first of 19 photo-a-day challenges.
This year, I felt the need to take a fresh approach. I didn’t just want to merely snap an image along a theme. I wanted to mull over the theme and make it a form of meditation, marrying my image with quotes and reflections of my own. After a recommendation from Rachel Devine of Sesame Ellis, it seemed that Project Life 365 was my answer.
I had intended to share my images more regularly but January has whizzed by almost as fast as a single blink of the eyes. So instead, I’d like to share just a little slice of my January. I hope you enjoy the images, quotes and musings, and please let me know if any of this inspires you. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
January 1st – Resolution
“We must stop wishing and simply start building the life we want.” – Tyler Knott Gregson
January 3rd – Optimistic
I choose to live in hope. “I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.” – Barack Obama
January 4th – Grace
“Gracefulness has been defined to be the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul” ~ William Hazlitt
January 5th – View
“The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.” – Muhammed Ali. I have learnt it is never too late to change. If we “fail”, we push away the doubts, get up and try again
January 7th – Simplicity
“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity” – Charles Mingus This fact this photo is late shows how I struggle with simplicity, yet how much I need it. Making things too complicated equates to much wasted time and wasted time is life frittered away.
January 8th – Front Door
“When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.” – Alexander Graham Bell
January 15th – Confusing
“One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked. ‘Where do you want to go?’ was his response. ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.” – Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland Choice is meant to be liberating. Yet too much choice can just be paralysingly. Maybe the key is to take it step-by-step….as with everything.
January 19th – Style
“Fashion fades; only style remains the same.” – Coco Chanel I’ve often struggled to define my style in fashion, home interiors, photography, etc. After struggling yet again with this prompt for over a day, I think my answer is that my style is whatever comes from my heart, from the essence of who I am. It’s as simple as that. When I try to box it in with a tight definition, I falter, because there isn’t one answer. I’m an eclectic mixture, and the sum of all those parts. That’s my #style.
January 22nd – Makes me smile
Tonight Littler Miss put on her pink gumboots then proceeded to “help” her big sis by hand-delivering Miss T’s blue gumboots. Miss T took them with thanks only to pop them back on the floor saying, “I love you, sis, but I don’t want to wear my boots right now.” How can I not smile when I witness the love and tenderness between my little girls
January 23rd – Transparent
“Eyes so transparent that through them the soul is seen.” – Theophile Gautier We may all enter the world with honesty and an open heart but it only takes a short step into childhood for the filter to become foggy. Few adults are willing, able and courageous enough to stay transparent save but to a sacred few. Sad? Or is this just life?
January 26th – Guest
“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” – Robert Louis Stevenson I arrived here years ago but still don’t always feel at home. Is home a place or a state of mind? My husband says, “Home is where I am.” Others say, “Home is where the heart is.” What say you?
January 28th – Inside
“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.” – Oscar Wilde
Related Posts
How photo challenges have changed me
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Linking with Grace at With Some Grace for FlogYoBlogFriday (FYBF).
Love your interpretation on this project 365. I am a real photo a day failure so I think it’s great to have been able to put so much meaning behind each photo: my fav day quote is jan 6th.
Posted by Lisa | 8 February 2013, 2:49 pmThanks, Lisa. I’m not sure I’d have had the courage to jump into a 365 project if I hadn’t done over a year worth of previous challenges. Committing monthly was easier than the year up front. It’s made a huge difference to me personally, tapping into a creative spot I struggled to release in the past. That’s probably also why I am keen to push through. And I must confess, I miss some days too or struggle to be happy with my concept and then just double up the next day. I think Fat Mum Slim, who ran last year’s FMSphotoaday challenge also wrote that it was okay to miss a bit. Just play catch up. No shame in that.
I notice you’re keeping up with #FABruary this time round. Good for you!
Posted by Mixed Gems | 8 February 2013, 9:51 pmI like how the pictures are so big (posted one at a time) so we really get to see the details of the picture. I love “Transparent”!
Posted by biculturalmama | 8 February 2013, 4:33 pmI never thought of that but, yes, all my past photos were normally thumbnails. So you do get to see the detail now. Sometimes it even scares me, Maria! The little iPhone screen makes things look much nicer sometimes
“Transparent” is special. It was of my bigger girl. I don’t publicly show a lot of detailed photos of my children but a few snippets creep in here and there.
Posted by Mixed Gems | 8 February 2013, 9:54 pmA lovely, thoughtful collection. You are clearly appreciating life through the lens.
Posted by yinyangmother | 8 February 2013, 4:45 pmThank you, Kathy. I never realised how much I appreciated life through the lens. It’s funny how things can serendipitously happen in life.
Posted by Mixed Gems | 8 February 2013, 10:02 pmI love seeing your photos in this challenge as they are so thought-provoking and makes me stop to think about the quotes you chose too.
Posted by Ai Sakura | 10 February 2013, 6:30 pmThe challenge has made me stop and think quite a bit too, Ai. I know inspirational quotes can come across as too much of “positive medicine” at times but I don’t think there is anything wrong using them as aspirations to work towards.
Posted by Mixed Gems | 11 February 2013, 12:51 pmOh my, V!!! These are all so magnificent! And it’s just taken you to that extra level of profoundness and depth. I’m bookmarking this post because I do love all those quotes!
Thanks for sharing! x
Posted by mamagrace71 | 14 February 2013, 9:36 pmThanks for such warm compliments, Grace. The quotes take a bit of effort but I feel the power of both image and words is quite meaningful, at least for me anyway.
Posted by Mixed Gems | 19 February 2013, 9:42 pm