Top 5 tips for doing the 365

YAY!!! Happy last day of 2014. I can not believe I have now finished my first 365. What a year, full of so many memories captured. Since I have just completed my first 365, I wanted to highlight some of the tips I learned along the way. Yes I could make this a top 25 list, but decided to narrow it done to 5. If you have not yet tried this journey, highly recommend it. It is amazing the level you can bring your photography too, just by picking up your camera everyday.


1. No rules.

Since last year was my first year, I choose to have no rules put on myself. I did try to focus on capturing my kids, but some days you see a leaf that catches your eye, and that ends up being your photo of the day. Embrace it, just take a photo a day of anything.

2. Do it for you.

This is one of the most important lessons I learned, and once I got it through my head, my photography improved. I had to take a step back about halfway through, to better understand my real goals for the 365. I was getting to focused on topping the yesterday's photo. I felt that every photo to everyone had to be the WOW factor. But I was not on this journey to pump out amazing work everyday. I did it to become more familiar with my camera, to capture those moments I might miss otherwise. They were all treasures to me, even if to you its just a photo of messy wet hair, to me it's the memory of how she always missed those stands while washing it.

3. Take the same photo.

365 days is a long time, and you only have so many rooms in your house and so many places to visit. Don't be afraid to take the same photo. For example we did a lot of sleeping & bath photos, but in the end it's worth it to see how your little ones have grown, and how your photography has grown from your first bath photo till your last bath photo.

4. Reuse old photos, a little cheat won't hurt.

I drove myself insane some days. It would be 10 pm at night, only to realize we were so busy I forgot to grab a shot. But yesterday we were around home and I got a nap photo, a bath photo, a playing photo. Well let me tell you, using one from yesterday won't matter to anybody. I think out of my whole 365 photos there might be 25 that I used from the day before. Now that I am at the end, I could not even point everyone of those out, I have even forgotten which ones.

5. Share your images with friends & family. 

 Post it some where you know you will have a following, like every day on  Facebook album, or once a week in a blog post. This helped me not to quit the journey. There were days I thought I would throw in the towel, but knowing I had friends following me, waiting for today's photo, keep me wanting to keep sharing them. If it were not for all my friends and family following along, I might of gave up. Nothing beats a support team and a cheer squad!

If you want to see more, you can view the full 365 album

HERE