A photo a day

It was 4 years ago this month I first became aware of Australian blogger Chantelle Ellem (aka Fat Mum Slim) and her photo a day challenge. A friend of mine had started sharing photos on Facebook that she'd taken following the monthly list of prompts and it really appealed to me. I'd always been interested in photography but, after a tough few months following our youngest son's early arrival and journey through the NICU / SCBU, I was struggling to find any sort of me-time. The simple challenge of taking a photo every day and sharing it with my friends could be just what I needed.

I started on 1st February 2012 with the prompt 'Your View Today'. It was my birthday and I'd received a lovely new pair of shoes so that's what I photographed.

I kept going with the daily prompts, month after month, taking a few minutes each day just for me, away from the stress of raising 3 young boys. When I found the linked Facebook group I was inspired by the other members and I worked hard to improve my photography. I was constantly pushed to move out of my comfort-zone and was introduced to technical vocabulary that had me rushing to Google for help (negative space and rule of thirds have both become firm favourites).

I read a lot of photography articles online and got books from the library, I challenged myself to take my camera off Auto and shoot only on Manual. I made mistakes, a lot of mistakes, but I learned from each one. I became more confident in my skills, taking photos was something I was good at! I sold a couple of prints and some greetings cards, I was asked to take photos of some family friends, I found some willing models to build my portfolio, I opened a website and a Facebook page to showcase my photography, I took photos at my first wedding... none of these things would've happened without the challenge.

If you need evidence of how much the past 4 years of the challenge have improved my work, take a look at these photographs. They're both of the same object yet they couldn't be more different! While you could argue that the quality of my equipment has improved, my understanding of the technical side of photography has unmistakenly improved alongside. The angle, the lighting, the use of depth of field, I could go on!

I can't recommend taking on a daily photography challenge highly enough, there are lots of them around these days (although I'm always going to recommend Chantelle's first!). I had no idea how far this simple idea would take me on my photography journey and I plan to continue with it far into the future.

My #fmsphotoaday photos can be found on Instagram, Flickr & Twitter