Sunday 21 October 2007: Back to basics

Because I'm embarking on my fourth year of this madness, G and I had a wee blether this morning which has made me have a big think about why I started all this in the first place, and where it's gone since.

For me, Blipfoto wasn't supposed to be about trying to achieve excellence in photography (as you'll probably notice rather quickly if you rewind back to the beginning); it was much more about snapping a disposable image of wherever I happened to be that day. (The name 'blip' actually came from a combination of that here-today-gone-tomorrow idea and the little pulse of electricity that flows through your digital camera as it captures an image.)

I had other outlets for my 'proper' photographs at the time and I even bought a very small camera just for this project (probably so that it wouldn't be about photography). I remember really wanting the one-a-day thing to be something different from the other things I was doing with a camera.

I think it's fair to say that, aside from the odd shot taken for other reasons, I stuck to that philosophy until about here, when I killed the littlest camera and it became reincarnated as a larger version of itself. After that, I think I tried much harder every day to make proper photographs. This change in direction was further compounded last year when lots of other clever people started joining in and the comments started flowing - everybody loves it when someone says "great shot!"

But however good a photographer you think you are, trying to create a great shot every day is a seriously tall order and an incredible amount of pressure to put yourself under. That can be very draining and, I think, precisely what's driven a few people here to stop dead.

It's Monday tomorrow and I've got a helluva busy working week ahead of me. So, I'm going to see if I can take Joe Blogs back to where he started. If I find a great picture, great, but I'm going to concentrate much more on trying to pull something out of what's happening around me, not try and create something out of nothing.

After all, the other journals on here I most enjoy browsing do precisely that.

Let's give it a week and see how it goes...

P.S. - you didn't really think I'd miss a day, did you?

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