138/365 Project

In 2013, I had a mission. Every day that year, I wanted to create a quality picture that reflected that day as best as possible.

It was a challenge. I had watched photographer friends struggle in the past, sometimes offering up simple snapshots of clouds to satisfy that day's quota. I'm not that easily satisfied. I wanted to experiment, to push myself, to sum up each day of my life that year in a single image and post it on Facebook before midnight. One that was good enough to show off in a portfolio, every single day.

Before long, I had friends and strangers all over campus waiting for the next picture. Sometimes I would recruit random students to model, or conceptualise a feeling I had that day, like stress. I never left my room without my bulky camera dangling by my side, whether I was heading to a lecture or a friend's house. I couldn't chance missing a crucial moment, like the first touchdown of the Super Bowl at 11.42pm on day 34. Despite the touchdown happening around 15 minutes to midnight, I raced home and had a picture of the celebrations online before the day was up. Day 58, a 50-photo panorama of the Keele Concourse, has since been used in the university's marketing.

The project soon became more stressful than my master's degree, which was the whole reason I was still at university. The pressure to deliver a new and somewhat poignant image before a daily deadline started to mount. Sometimes I hunted in the darkness, with the minutes creeping up to midnight, just to take another picture because one from earlier that day just didn't cut it. That is, until the master's deadline and exam season arrived.

I started to fall behind. Missing my midnight deadline and posting the next day. Posting 'backup' pictures from earlier in the project. They weren't all winners. I felt like I'd failed.

Then I was called away on a residential business retreat as part of my course. It was no place for a camera. I didn't have 3G, let alone WiFi. By the time it was over, I was a week behind. I was soon going to be interning at the city council to complete my degree, and being holed up 9 to 5 in a bunker-esque office for three months didn't exactly scream 'photo-op'.

I had to abandon the project. I was 138 days in.

I was obsessed with my passion project, but that makes it sound like a bad thing. I learnt so much. I experimented with lots of photography and editing techniques, some I now hate and some I still use. And I met so many amazing people in such a short space of time. It was the perfect way to see off the last few months of an incredible four years at Keele University.