365 not out

It's taken much longer than I anticipated to put this together, and I must admit to several moments during the day when I seriously thought of abandoning the idea and starting all over again with something simpler. But then I reached a point of no return and had no choice but to continue to the bitter end. So here it is, Blip 365. All put together using screenshots from my Blipfoto pages, organised in Apple's Pages application, printed out, photographed, updated with the 365th itself incorporated, and finally re-photographed to produce this final offering. Phew! I'm worn out!!

But it's been important to go to some trouble to mark the past year on Blipfoto which has been such a brilliant blast. There have been times recently when things didn't go as smoothly as I would have liked, when inspiration deserted me completely, when other things in my life prevented me from commenting as I would have liked ... but that's all in the past now. I never imagined that I'd keep this up for 365 days uninterrupted. I'm not renowned for persevering with anything in this way, so Blipfoto certainly must have something really special to get me hooked the way it has. 'Must have' something special? Of course it does: it has its wonderful contributors who produce all this wonderful, inspiring, amazing material, it has a remarkably supportive community spirit, and it has a tremendous team behind it working away in Blip Central.

Despite far too many days when I've blipped any old thing just for the sake of maintaining this journal uninterrupted, I've also managed to produce some images which I'm reasonably happy with -- in chronological order, they'd be the following:

Lightcatcher
Work and Fresh Air
Sea-painting Experiment
Out and about
Adriatic sparkles
Sunday street scene
Striding
Stepped yellow
Sunlit Orrefors
Dandyhead
Smokestacks and Bench
Strangers on a tram
Sopping wet
Swan-neck garlic
In the park
Something to grab on to
Irish prairie
Iris
Kaleidofood
Nice. Day 1
No sooner there than gone again
Glass ripples
Parasurfer
Moored in Howth
Power walk
Thoughtful moment

I have every intention of continuing with Blip for the foreseeable future. Posting something every day really has changed the way I see things, even when I don't have the camera with me. Being involved here has enticed me out and about more than I would otherwise be, which can only be better for my general health than it would be otherwise. I've learned some important lessons about photography in general (most importantly that good results don't depend on the the sun shining brightly from a clear blue sky, and that the tiniest detail can register visually out of all proportion to its size in an image). But most importantly of all I've been blessed over the past twelve months by being part of the wonderful Blip community. Thank you one and all for your many supportive and enthusiastic comments, for your wonderful contributions to Blipfoto, and for sharing your highs and lows with all of us. It's a great thing to be involved in, and I'm eternally grateful to Skyroad in particular -- his was the first journal I came across here, and it was because I wanted to comment on one of his entries that I registered with Blipfoto, thinking at the time 'Sure I might as well sign up as a contributor and give this a go'. I'm so, so glad I made that decision.