A Photo a Day
For those of you doing the June Photo a Day challenge, I thought I’d give you a little inspiration. I’d like to introduce you to my friend, Rebecca from Petite Marguerite (she does the most fabulous “magazine cover style greeting cards and invitations, by the way), who has been doing her Photo a Day Challenge since the beginning of the year, with some unexpected results. Thanks Rebecca for your fantastic contribution and for sharing your photos with us. Note: All photos are subject to copyright, with rights held by Petite Marguerite.
Guest post by Rebecca Gillard – Petite Marguerite
This year I am taking Photo of the Day and posting it up on my personal facebook account. I really should make it a blog (yes, you should – Cath 
) Mine is not a unique idea by any means!
My timing has been perfect for starting this project. I no longer working full-time and now work for myself, so life is pretty flexible and I get to spend time just hanging out and looking at life – sometimes through my three year old’s eyes, which is magical. I try to take something that sums up that day – the weather, where we’ve been, what we saw. Sometimes it’s an everyday connection to big events – like the paper princess dolls we were dressing for the Royal Wedding, sometimes it’s just something we found silly (drawing on boiled eggs). Obviously my kids feature a lot, particularly my three year old and our crazy cat. The self inflicted pressure to shoot something to ’share’ each day is a good driver to step out from behind the computer to go and find an interesting picture.
I am not a trained photographer, but I am an Art Director who has spent many years working alongside photographers, going on shoots and choosing photos. I do love taking photos. I have shot stuff for friends which I have enjoyed immensely because they have allowed me to shoot as I see. Photo of the Day is a joy. I shoot just for myself and what appeals to me. I love that creative freedom and I know that would not happen if I took it up professionally!
I mainly shoot with hipstamatic on the i-phone as it’s always with me (i-phone addict). I love the different films and lenses I can use and the fact that hipstamatic also quite experimental. You never really know how they will turn out. The shots sometimes remind me of the old photos of us as kids – now all faded and weird colours, but lovely and so precious. Occasionally I’ll use my canon DSLR but that seems to make things feel posed and more of a deal to everyone, it’s less spontaneous.
What started out as a personal creative challenge exercise has become a great record of 2011. It’s become a visual diary. Quite often you don’t notice things you see everyday like your kids slowly maturing and changing. It’s amazing to see that even over a month or so, there is a visible change. Maybe my kids are at that age – one about to go through puberty and one as a toddler, that they are going through so many changes, but it’s cool to be able to look back over the year to see what we did, how we felt, and how we’ve grown. It’s also a reminder of the silly things you do that really sum up childhood like puddle jumping and baking cakes together. Great moments we forget about.
I have had great feedback from people viewing my daily pics and I have used some of them on greeting cards. On a personal level, sometimes if I’m having a ‘moment’, I’ll take a look back over them and be reminded of how there is beauty and wonder in every moment. It cheers me up no end and also inspires me to continue. At the end of the year, I would like to print it out as a full set of thumbnail images to frame.
I wonder if I’ll keep it up next year. It’s become a habit and strangely addictive, but more than that, it’s become a wonderful record of us just being us.
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