I wanted to discuss some of my initial thoughts about our newest project, 365, a daily photoblog which was a part of The Wife’s wedding gift to me. When I got the beautifully wrapped box in my hotel room that Saturday morning, I was excited, ultimately, that it was finally time to find out what she had gotten me. The Wife is, for the most part, not that great at hiding secrets from me, and I think she would be apt to tell you that as well, if you were chatting with her in a quiet corner at a dinner party, and if she thought you might not tell. For all of the reasons that I chose to marry her, and there are many; if the decision had been based solely on her ability to keep from me secrets about gifts that she has purchased for me, we would not be together today. But I digress.
For literally months prior to our wedding day, she had talked about how wonderful her gift to me would be, and how excited I would be for it. I had made many guesses as to its identity prior to the big day, to no avail. I suspected a camera early on, because we had discussed getting ourselves one as a mutual gift to each other, but that had fallen by the way side, due to her constant protestations against it.
So when the gift was brought to me, by, I don’t even remember whom at this point, it came with two envelopes, one containing a card to read before the gift was opened, and one to read after. The first card said all the things that you’d expect a card from your future spouse to say on your wedding day, and ended by telling me that the time was here, and that I would now be allowed to open the gift that sat in front of me. And with that, wrapping paper was shredded and flung, and my eyes gazed upon the most wonderful gift I’d ever seen.
In all of the commotion that occurred after I opened our new camera, plugging in attachments, and cleaning lenses, and taking pictures, I almost forgot to open the second envelope. When I finally did, though, and when I read what the entirety of my gift entailed, the thought excited me. For the time being though, I put it into the back of my mind, and went about the remainder of the business of being wed. And now here we are.
Almost one month later, and I still very much love the idea of our little project. And I love my wife for trusting me enough to let me create a new design, and a new web address for our project, even though she had gone to quite the trouble of already preparing a site. I love the look of the site, and wouldn’t have been as excited about this whole thing if it hadn’t meant for me a chance to take on one more personal design. I’ve actually heard her agree, too, but I’ll have good luck on the day that I can get her to admit to a third party that I’ve done it right. Once again, though, I digress.
While the blog has been exciting, it has brought about some interesting situations. For instance, on certain days, we tend to get in a rut, performing the same tasks for days at a time, and making the prospect of a unique, and interesting picture a daunting task. This has not hampered us all that much to date, but I trust if we give it time this will be the case. A year is a long period of time, and we’re typically not that interesting to begin with. On the other hand, though, on those days where there is a lot going on in our lives, and there have been more of those than normal so far, it becomes difficult to decide which in a very large group of pictures to choose as representative of the entire days’ activities. And finally, there’s always the idea sitting in the back of my head that I need to save certain shots that I know I can take at any time, for days when I really need them.
For instance, about three weeks back, I took a picture of our cat one morning, which turned out really well, and which became the picture that we used for that particular day. However, I knew, and still know, that I can take a picture of the cat any day, if I need to. And that probably won’t be the last time she shows up on the site. But in the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but think, “Save that shot for another day, when you might really need it, you’ve got all day to find another shot for today!” And that’s what makes this whole thing interesting, in my opinion, is those types of situations. That, and trying to see the noteworthy or the beautiful in a place card, or a thank you note, or a pint of ice cream.
So I’ve resigned myself to the fact that while this is the first time that I’ve noted my thoughts about our new project, it most certainly won’t be the last, and so I’ve titled it as such, accordingly. It will be interesting to me to see not only how the photoblog progresses throughout the year, and maybe more, but also how ours and others’ perceptions of it change as more images are posted, and as more images are sought out in our world. I suppose only time will tell.
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