We are in the month of July. This is the month where my creativity starts to wane. Heat... vacations... guests... rain... all consume the days and taking a photo a day can sometimes take a backseat.
Are you ready to put down your camera? Give up? Throw in the towel?
Have you missed a prompt or two? Or more? Are the long daylight hours making it difficult to find the best light while you still have the desire and energy?
Sometimes you have to look backwards to move forwards. Looking back shows how you pushed through. Or that you took a break. Or that you got more creative. Or something else.
No matter what you discover when you look back, you will know that you survived and made it through to where you are right now.
I decided to look back at July 1 for the last 4 years... and then July of my very first year of taking a photo a day. I back up my photos in google back-up and I am able to easily search by date. You can choose any date you like or even look through each month of photos you took.
You may choose to look at the last few years, or go way back to the first year you took photos. Searching for and finding the photos was pretty fun for me. I didn't remember any of the photos that showed up. Nothing about them jogged my memory. That was part of the fun and the reminder that I did take a picture on that day.
The image above was taken July 1, 2022. I don't recall this image at all and it was just a year ago! What it showed me is that I was playing with motion blur. I was doing something out of the box that the prompt stretched me to do. I rather like the image and it gave me ideas of things to try again.
The above image was taken July 1, 2021. We must have had a lot of rain that year. We had a very wet Spring again this year. This photo proved to me that I could take a lovely photo even in the worst weather conditions. The added text provided me with a little motivation.... from myself!
This image from 2020 really brought back memories. Not only was it the year of COVID, but it was the year 365 Picture Today began! Four of us struck out together to keep a community of photographers together not knowing if anyone would come along. We had a very short time period to launch and decided to use the National Day Calendar. That was a great year to iron out issues and learn about the community.
I adore the above image. Our daughter and her family moved to Texas the year before and we were heartbroken. After having lived 10 minutes from us, our grandgirls were moved half way across the country. We were sad and scared and didn't know how we could keep the close relationship we had cultivated. This photo reminds me that even though we don't see them everyday, we get visit them and nothing has changed the way we love each other. The girls still love to help me with my photo of the day when I am visiting with them.
The final image was taken on a family vacation to the lake in July 2015. This was the very first year I participated in a daily photo project. I can look back at this photo and smile seeing all of the joy. Some things have happened to our family that were catastrophic, but I can see the smiles and fun in this photo and remember the happy times.
Go back. Look back. Think back. Whatever you may be going through now, whether it good or bad, busy or quiet, see if you can learn something from yourself.