{"id":451,"date":"2020-07-27T12:04:05","date_gmt":"2020-07-27T12:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robdix.com\/?p=451"},"modified":"2020-07-27T12:04:07","modified_gmt":"2020-07-27T12:04:07","slug":"daily-photo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robdix.com\/daily-photo\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I take a photo every single day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’m probably the worst photographer in the world. If it were still possible to leave the lens cap on and forget to wind on the film, I would. Even with all the built-in aids of modern technology, every photo I take is blurry or wonky or chops off part of whatever I was trying to capture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cause or effect of this (not sure which) is I’ve never been a “photo person”. It never crosses my mind to take a photo in any situation \u2013 which means I’ve got virtually no record of all the amazing places I’ve been and things I’ve done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet I love looking back at the few photos I do have. Seeing a photo immediately reminds me not just of that moment, but everything I was doing around that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I decided it was worth making an attempt to overcome my non-photo-person-ness by making a habit of taking a photo every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The daily habit<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I decided to borrow an idea I’d seen someone else online talking about: commit to taking one photo every day.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, there were three components to making this happen:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. A habit-tracking app so I can see a “tick” every day next to my “Take a photo” task, and I’m motivated not to break the chain.<\/li>
  2. A reminder at a set time every day to take the photo (the app does this too, but a repeating calendar entry or phone alarm would achieve the same thing).<\/li>
  3. Absolutely no pressure for the photo to be any good, or of anything in particular.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    I’ve now been doing this for 208 days, and only missed a single day when I was ill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The photos<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    This habit has one aim: to help me remember my life.<\/strong> It’s not about making me a better photographer, or taking photos I can show off to other people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    As a result, I’ve deliberately set the bar for quality extremely low. Looking back at the few photos I have taken in past years, my favourites are those that show extremely normal everyday scenes: the apartment I was living in, or the view from a coffee shop table where I was sitting. That type of photo seems to spark richer memories than photos of beautiful buildings or posed photos of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    So I’m very comfortable taking an extremely mundane and poor quality photo, because I believe these un-staged, “real” shots are actually the most likely to achieve my sole aim of remembering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    As a result, I have lot of photos like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    And this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    With the occasional boundary-pushing one like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    The results<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    It’s too early to say, but I believe my future self will thank me for doing this. Even now I can scroll through my photos and be reminded of things I did a few months ago that I’d totally forgotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I was expecting that as a side-benefit, the act of being reminded every day would trigger me to spontaneously think to take photos without<\/em> being reminded. This hasn’t happened at all: I’m still totally reliant on pulling out my phone and seeing the prompt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This surprised me, because normally about 60 days is enough to form a habit and for it to feel weird if you don’t do it. So I guess not being a photo person is a result of some deeper character trait that’s resistant to change \u2013 like being future-focused and not particularly reflective in nature (highly likely).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I won’t start really reaping the reward of the primary benefit for a year or more, so until then I’ll keep investing the 30 seconds per day needed to keep the habit going. And being grateful that I live in a time when I don’t have to embarrass myself by going to get all these dreadful, mundane photos developed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I’ve been taking a photo every day for months. Learn why I started doing it, and what the benefits have been.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy I take a photo every single day - Rob Dix<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I've been taking a photo every day for months, without fail. 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