Did you take part in last week's
#7_day_challenge? What did you think about it?
You know by now that our challenges never expire, and it's never too late to jump in and challenge yourself. I had fun with my series, and I loved pushing myself to get out and make it happen each day. I found myself daydreaming the next day's shot right after I'd finished the current one!
My personal opinion is that when you keep to a schedule, and make yourself produce something every day, the focus moves from chasing after better gear and dreaming about masterpieces not yet realized, and shifts to the very real task of getting something done and published because a clock is ticking.
Bloggers and YouTube vloggers say it this way: "Always Be Publishing".
You build an audience because you have a body of work to be discovered. Some shots may indeed be masterful, but I believe it's the daily building of that body of work that captivates an audience through each day's impulse and outcome. Your body of work lays bare all the moments in the creative arc of your life, with all your inspirations and all your discoveries contained in images captured at the precise moment they passed into eternity.
I have a few ideas kicking around for how I could make self-initiated consecutive series challenges a permanent feature of the site. I love the thought of members being able to draw inspiration in different ways, and of creating accessibility into photography for all skill levels. Photography, like almost anything else, really can come down to being a "numbers game", in the sense that the more you do it -- and truly the more you share what you've shot -- the better you become.
Consider this: If you were to set yourself the goal of shooting and sharing one original photo a day, every day, for 30-days in a row, would you do that? What would your photography look like after 100 consecutive days? What would it look like after a year? What would it feel like to know you had an audience cheering you on?
More about this in weeks to come. :)
Keep shooting! I can't wait to see what you've seen this week!
Marc
