150 days

I started a daily photo journal on April 29, so this makes 150 days. I haven't missed one: every day at least a fifteen minute walk with the camera, one photo picked for the journal.

Most of the summer it happened first thing in the morning, but when the sun started rising later and I was working full-time, I had to shift to after work. I've walked especially along the Eramosa River here, but also at Poplar Bluff, Lake Fletcher, Delaware Avenue, Easton Mountain and Point Clark. In August and September, afternoon walks took me further afield, exploring parks, side roads and streams between Fergus and Guelph. The excursions have led to a deeper experience of the landscape in which I live, and the organisms and objects that inhabit it.

You can view the journal here.

The project has energized and inspired me. I've generated a significant body of work during this time. The practise has allowed me to explore light, colour, texture and depth of field. It has brought a clearer sense of what I want to express through photography. Even though nature is my personal sacred source, I did not set out particularly to document it through the passage of seasons, but that was what consistently drew my attention. Some mornings I planned the walks around things I had previously noticed and wanted to photograph.

I've had fun with the Canon A620, and realized its limitations. Hopefully I'll have time to learn and become proficient at Photoshop this fall, and hopefully I can soon afford to create a physical portfolio.

Ideally I would like to continue the photo journal for a year, but it's hard to say what will happen in the next few weeks. Finding work is the highest priority. Hopefully my walks will still fit around that, but decreasing daylight will become more restrictive. I have two ideas about where I might take the photo journal in case I can't walk during daytime, but I'll wait and see what life's events dictate. I'd like to reach at least six months.

Most of my life I've eschewed routine, but this has been a tremendous lesson in the power of a good habit. Beyond the creation of a photo journal, the experience has stimulated a renaissance in my creative life. My knitting, writing and social life have benefited. It demonstrates the incredible value of fifteen minutes.