As most of you are aware, I began this crazy idea to take a picture of my entire family, including the dog, at the start of the year. I know how crazy the idea sounds – 365 days of photos EVERY DAY with my family. In fact, I’ve found myself in the midst of this photography challenge asking myself on more than one ocassion, “what in the world am I thinking giving myself more unnecessary work?”
This summer I’ve passed the midway mark in completing this project and have spent sometime reflecting on the first half of 365. It’s overwhelming to look back at how many moments were captured and how many MORE moments were photographed that would likely have either never been photographed or may have never happened if it weren’t for this silly idea. I bring my camera with me about 90% of the time and have lost track of how many of my favorite moments photographed happened when I’d typically would have never had my camera with me. Though the year started with me challenging myself to take a photo every day of each of us – it’s pretty obvious that its tougher to JUST take one photo.
Our graphics faculty art exhibition is later this month and I’m thrilled to share with everyone what I’ve dubbed as “205 days of 365″. It’s a photomosaic made of 1553 of the best photos taken this past year. Yes, 1553 – that’s only a fraction of the estimated 15,000+ photos I’ve taken this year. Here’s my mosaic that will be on display at our graphics faculty art exhibition at Valencia Community College in late August.
HOW I PULLED OFF ANOTHER CRAZY IDEA…
Now yes, I have to say that the idea of creating a mosaic sounded just as crazy as taking a picture every day this year. Months ago I looked into how to pull off making a mosaic, knowing it’d be a challenge to assemble such a tedious project. That’s when I ran across Picture Mosaics who specialize in making true photo mosaics. After looking through a gallery of previous mosaics they’ve helped create, I know that this was exactly what I wanted to do with my 365 photos for the faculty show.
Though Picture Mosaics helped assemble the mosaic, it was still a very tedious process on my end. I have been a little OCD with keeping my 365 photos organized this year which helped speed this process up some. I ended up using Lightroom to manually set the crop area for every single photo because I did not trust the computer to make the decision of where to crop the photo for me. Lightroom then exported all the photos for me together so that I wouldn’t have to open and save all 1553 photos. If it weren’t for lightroom I’d likely still be cropping and saving photos. Once I finished all the files were sent to Picture Mosaics and they made the mosaic using the source photo I wanted the smaller pictures to make up. I was impressed with how the mosaic came together and would definitely suggest trying Picture Mosaics if you’re ever considering a photo mosaic.
MY MOSAIC UP CLOSE
Of course mosaics are best viewed either at a distance or up close. I spent a while after receiving the mosaic analyzing all the photos that made up the mosaic. Looking at the mosaic was a great reflection on the first 205 days of 365. Here are a few closer screenshots from the mosaic.
THE LAST HALF OF 365
Yes, I am still continuing 365, even after this insanely busy week of finishing final grades at Valencia, preparing 3 projects for our faculty art exhibition, and finishing up my portfolio for my masters at SCAD. I’ve got a week and a half worth of photos to sift through to share before I’m caught up but at this point there’s no giving up on 365 – and seeing this photo mosaic is just more fuel for me to finish of this challenge. Who knows, I may just need to make another mosaic at the end of the year.
If you’re interested in seeing more of the 365 picture up close you can check them out in flickr in my 365 collection.
by Amanda Kern
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