Photo A Day 2016

 As I've mentioned before, I've been doing the Photo A Day challenge during 2016. I haven't actually put up a photo for a little while and from time to time during the year there were odd gaps. I've been pondering whether to do it again next year. 

 

How much do I mind the missed days or, latterly, weeks? I suppose it does irk me a little when I miss some. But it's a bit like healthy eating. Just because I ate a big slice of cake today doesn't mean it isn't healthy to eat fruit tomorrow. The fruit still counts. So with the photos, the ones I've taken still count and there were still days when I did produce a photo but had to dig deep at the last minute to put one up and on those days I was certainly meeting a challenge.

 

The Facebook group for the challenge is full of people who meet it every day, whose photos are in the 'lovely photo' category every day, who experiment with filters and effects almost every day. Mine, by contrast, sometimes aim for the 'lovely photo' but sometimes are just unadorned snaps of the daily prompt in order to meet the challenge. I think I should be happy with that.  I've also produced the occasional image that I'm really pleased with.

 

So ... I'm going to take on the challenge again in 2017, with the same kind-to-myself attitude that if I don't do a photo every day I haven't failed the challenge.  In 2016 Photo A Day has sometimes made me think about how I take photographs and take time to construct a shot, sometimes made me keep my eyes open better for opportunities to meet the prompts I know are coming up and these are good things, which I hope to build on.  Most of those taking part in the challenge I've done are using their phones and phone apps to manipulate photos.  I, on the other hand, take on my camera and upload to PC, where I have Photoshop.  I think I'll continue with that but perhaps make an effort to use my phone for some photos as up till now my results from the phone camera have mostly been rubbish and it would be good to do something about that.

 

You can see the whole album of 2016 Photo A Day images here.  In the mean time, here's my pick of a favourite photo from each month of the year.  In some months had few photos to choose from so the favourite photo isn't always one I'm particularly pleased with and it seems I didn't meet the challenge at all in July, so there are only 11 photos.