365 Photo challenge, rules/guidelines

[MMF]

In an effort to do more with my camera have set myself a 365 photo challenge for 2014, for anyone who has done one of these what rules did you set yourself? (apart from the obvious one of a photo every day)
I'm trying to avoid ending the year with 300 photos of my cat.

The only guidelines i've found so far is to take a self portrait once a month.

Any other ideas would be appreciated.

[ameerat42]

Hi MMF. I don't know your photographic interests, but you could set yourself a task to try something you haven't done before or don't usually do.
My present interest is bird photography, well, more a new interest, as I don't intend to stop trying for them.
Am.

[natthu]

You could set yourself a different theme each day. Maybe even pinch the themes of the previous photo of the week competitions as ideas (ie "Red", "Dirt", "50mm" etc)

Some techniques that aren't seen/done so often might be good to try as well. Stuff like: Paint with light, daytime long exposure street scenes, zooming while shutter is open, 3D photography...
None of those require any special camera equipment to achieve reasonable results.

Set yourself a specific set of arbitrary instructions to follow for a day (ie catch the first bus from the nearest bus stop for 20 minutes, photograph the first thing you see when you get off... that type of thing).
I did this with a friend in Australia when I was living abroad, it was interesting to see the contrasting results between countries, so maybe if you travel somewhere you could repeat the same instructions from a different start point.

You could also look at some photos taken by others that you like and try to recreate them but with your own interpretation, or with props gathered from around your house.

[ricktas]

We will be running the weekly challenges again in 2014. Perhaps you could use each theme and expand on them to get one photo each day, with an overall theme based on our weekly ones.

http://www.ausphotography.net.au/for...BER-CHALLENGES

take this week's theme of Knife, Fork, Spoon. You could choose knife and then take a different shot each day for a week, involving a knife.

[dms]

I once started a 365 - think I lasted about a week dragging the DSLR around. I then tried carrying on with the iPhone camera but I have to say that I'm really uninspired by phone camera's for anything other than happy snaps.

I now have a camera that is a joy to carry around (Fuji X100S) and I really like the idea of doing a 365 challenge based on the weekly member challenge. Think I'll give it a go, thanks!

[Mark L]

We will be running the weekly challenges again in 2014. Perhaps you could use each theme and expand on them to get one photo each day, with an overall theme based on our weekly ones.

http://www.ausphotography.net.au/for...BER-CHALLENGES

Rick beat me to it, though next years challenge is what you want to think about ...... http://www.ausphotography.net.au/for...t-needed/page2
So for the first 7 days, take an abstract photo. Then post the best one in the members challenge for us all to see. Not much point taking a photo a day if you don't share the best one each week with us.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, as my photo in this weeks Knife, spoon and fork shows, you don't have to post great photos.

[ricktas]

oh and to add. The challenges for next year are (for some weeks) tied to a Photo of the Week competition that will start a couple of weeks after the challenge of the same theme. The idea being that you can use the challenge to get some experience, ideas for an entry into our photo of the week competition as well. But remember that you cannot use the same photo (or one that is very similar) in the photo of the week competition.

[MMF]

Thanks for all the ideas,
the challenges are a great idea to use as a theme for the week.
I'm aiming to do a lot with my DSLR but my little happy snap camera also has the ability to manually set apeture and shutter speed (as much as a happy snap camera can) so have decided not to exclude using that or the iphone. Part of doing the challenge is not just gaining experience with my camera but also to get me looking for photos on a daily basis.
My usual photos are of the cats.... chasing them round the house to try different suggestions/ techniques, although they now see the camera and start running. But as a keen traveller I would love to do more landscapes.

[Linda R]

Thnks for posting this as I have been thinking of trying something like this myself. I bought a new camera around July last year and with my work commitments developing as they have I rarely get a chance to use it and therefore am pretty hopeless with it I love the idea of the weekly challenge as this may be a more achievable challenge. Good luck with your project.