Year End

A labour of love, and I mean it because I have loved my year of taking and publishing a photo every day on this wonderful site.

I am sure my thoughts will resonate with many of you. Had I realised the profound impact the innocent (perhaps even naive) idea of trying to shoot and publish an image every day for a year could have, I would surely have given it greater consideration. There have been times where I waivered, balancing the pressures of a home and work life with photography. What I have realised is that my photography has improved and I have extended my skills into new areas, often after getting inspiration from your images.

The greatest pleasure from this challenge has been 'meeting' fellow photographers, getting to know you a little better, marvelling at your images, greatly appreciating your kind words and advice. I hadn't realised that it would be the social interaction that sets this experience apart from other photo sharing sites. Many thanks to you all for the pleasure this year has given me. There are too many people to mention all by name, but perhaps if I could just thank one or two. JohnGravett was inadvertently the reason I chose blipfoto. He announced via Facebook he was starting a journal just as I was looking around for a suitable site. John, with his wife Gail, run Lakeland Photographic Holidays just outside Keswick. For any photographer, spending a week with them is manna from heaven. JillyMint is the only other blipper I have met. Her wildlife photos are wonderful. Jill you are an inspiration in so many ways. Giacomo is well known to many of us at Blipfoto. He has the ability to make us all feel honoured to 'know' him either through his photography, his heartfelt words on his journal, or his invariably kind comments on our images. There are many more wonderful photographers here whose work I admire, thank you for sharing them with us. It feels inadequate not to mention more, but then where would I stop?

I enjoy statistics so I have a few for you:

Total images taken: 29206
Space taken up on hard drive: 656 GB
Most viewed: Saturday 23 June 2012: Beep....Beep....3:47 am .....BLEEP, BLEEP!
Most Favourited: Babies!
Most used camera: Nikon v1
Most shots in a day: 550 (May 12th)
Least shots in a day: 1 (on many occasions)

You may have noticed that this is my 365th blip, despite it saying 366 in the montage. It was always my intention to complete a year of photography, publishing an image every day. The fact that I chose a leap year to undertake the challenge meant that the website would acknowledge the achievement a day earlier than the year end, something I didn't want to happen. I will back blip yesterday's image tomorrow.

The montage includes every single image from the year, incuding yesterday's still to be published shot. It was an idea I first had earlier this month and must admit it has taken many hours to construct. There are more than 366 layers, as my calculations of the size needed for each individual image were slightly out and I had some annoying gaps on completing the placement. I have added one or two shots from my Folio to complete the mosaic.

And will I continue?

I hope so, although you can never say definitely. I know I can't go cold turkey, we will just have to wait and see.