31/366 Or in other words - January

Having reached the end of the first month I'm so glad I started this 366 project. I must admit that when I started out I anticipated that I would run out of steam, time, ideas and motivation, but so far none has proved to be a real issue. From the moment I wake up in the morning I am looking for that day's picture, but not in a pressurised sense, just an awareness and a kind of personal competitiveness - I'm always striving for today's to be the best yet, or at least better than yesterday's. I have a notebook where I scribble ideas for a future day's shot.

What I didn't expect was that other people would be waiting expectantly for my post of the day. I've been really pleasantly surprised and motivated by comments from friends and family. The majority of people don't comment on the blog or Facebook, so you can't tell how many have looked at it, although my blog now gets around 100 hits a day. This has heightened my sense of keeping it interesting, fresh and engaging.

There's a surprisingly large community of bloggers, photographers, enthusiasts who are also doing 366 projects and I'm enjoying being a part of that, looking at what other people have been doing and occasionally getting a comment from them on one of my pics! Can't tell you how good that feels - I do need to get out more! To see other people's 366 type it into Flickr or take a look at this link

Aside from the feeling of wellbeing I hope I'm learning and developing my style, by working outside my comfort zone, being more aware of composition, colour and style and trying out new ideas. I've enjoyed looking for new angles - shooting from directly above in several cases and using reflections. I've experimented more with shutter speeds and high ISO settings and used my tripod for the first time in ages.

So I'm looking forward to February - I was going to set some parameters or limitations but having run a very small poll on Facebook I'm going to stick with what I've been doing. I would encourage anyone, whatever the camera, whatever level of ability to give a project like this a go. We're going to end up with a great record of 2012 - I've already starting laying out a book with Bobs Books (my favourite photo book publisher).