If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then surely 31 of them are worth some comment, right?  In January, I met my goal and took at least one photo everyday and most days, it was fun.  Some days, it felt like a chore and you can probably see the difference in the photos themselves.  Along the way, I captured some really great moments:  the emotions on H’s face on January 5 and January 17, S’s activity on January 21 and January 26.  While my photos aren’t great art, I feel that I managed to tell the story of our life this month: the hectic reality of me going back to work (January 9), S’s obsession with Lego (January 13 & 27) and the iPad (January 31), H’s big achievement (January 24), and R’s love and support (January 12 & 16).

Aside from me going back to work, January was a fairly typical month for us.  Still, I think I see some evidence of the observer effect in these pictures.  We only live a few blocks from the beach, but we’ve gone less than a ten times in the year that we’ve lived here.  One of those times was this month, probably because it was the coldest thing I could think to photograph. Going to the children’s museum was R’s idea (it was near where we were going to run our errands), but he was probably thinking that it would give me the opportunity to take more interesting photos.  Both of these family outings are the kinds of things we’ve been meaning to do more often, but I wonder if my photo project is giving us the nudge we needed.

As a photographer, I learned for myself the superiority of natural light.  I noticed that my green curtains cause photos inside my home to have a sickly, greenish cast in most light.  The easiest way I’ve found to correct this is to switch to black and white.  I’ve also learned more about the need to compose shots to avoid distracting backgrounds.  Since I haven’t yet mastered depth of field (and because my home is full of distracting backgrounds), my shots are biased towards tight close-ups.  I’m still shooting using mainly pre-programmed camera settings, but I’m not always in full auto.  I’m learning the differences between portrait and landscape mode, etc.  I’ve still got a long way to go, but I’m having fun.