An Explanation About Photo of the Day

We all know what it means when someone tells us we need to stop and smell the roses.
It means we need to slow down and take time to appreciate the world around us. Of course, very few of us actually do stop and take in our surroundings, to enjoy a moment to its fullest and to gaze upon ordinary objects and events with the eye of an artist.

That's because many people believe they are not artists. I submit that those people are wrong — within the chest of every human being beats the heart of a poet. It's one of the gifts that has been given to us, if only we choose to use it.
We may not all be able to draw a figure, or write a song and play an instrument, or write a line of poetry that makes the masses weep with joy at the beauty of it, but there is art in everything we do, if we only look for it.

That's what I'm trying to convince myself, anyway. At the beginning of the year, I started on a project in which I promised myself to take a photograph every day during 2015. As of today, I'm up to 127 photos.

Anyone who has photography as a hobby knows that firing off 127 frames is pretty easy, I've shot hundreds of frames of the sunflowers in my yard trying to get that perfect shot. The exercise, though, is to select a photo each day that I kind of, sort of, like.

The primary idea behind the project is to force myself to slow down and smell the roses. After five months in, though, I'm finding there are other discoveries about this project that I'm making.
At first, I thought that I wanted to take photos of the things I encounter every day as I go about living. Some of these photos include filling up at the gas station, shopping for groceries and eating breakfast. There are already plenty of photos taken at home and at work. What I'm finding is that the more mundane and ordinary the location, the more I work to make the photograph creative.

It's resulted in some interesting photos.

I've also discovered as I look back on the photos, I can see there are several that are really nice, real artistic. Looking at them as a whole, though, I see there is a story that is being told about me. You can see photos at council meetings, of my frightened dog hiding under a table, of the game closet in my home.

I can't decide whether I like this story or not. While there is a very large part of me that wants to preserve my privacy, to hide my world view from the world, the other part of me knows that the act of creating art comes from exposing ourselves, to put away our fears and vulnerabilities, and revel in our vision. That's why so many people avoid their artistic impulses — it can get pretty messy and the worst thing that can occur is when you pour your heart out, throw art into the world and the world responds with disinterest.

However difficult it is to put aside those fears of apathy, we should all tap into our inner artist, because art is not created with an audience in mind, it is made with its creator in mind.

Studies have shown that, on the whole, people who have creative pursuits are happier. I suppose that's probably true. I know that I've committed myself to a year-long art project and afterwards I plan to put it all together in a book that I doubt many people will be interested in seeing. That doesn't matter, though. It is giving me a chance to slow down and smell the roses.

I first started this project on my Facebook page, but decided to move it over here. For anyone who cares to look at all the photos from Jan. 1, I'll be posting them as I have the time, placing them in a dropbox file or you can go to my page at www.facebook.com/rory.mcclannahan.