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Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Snowy weekend at Elon: Days 380-382

Sunday, December 19 My mom gets the photo credit on today's photos. She took these beautiful pictures in a neighborhood in Burlington.


Saturday, December 18
I had a beautiful weekend at Elon...as soon as I arrived, it began to snow. I couldn't have asked for more.

My Beetle outside Iron Gate Winery...clearly a necessary stop while at Elon. 
Pretty berries somewhere along the road in Mebane...mom and I spotted the trees while driving back from Iron Gate.
 Alamance all lit up...my favorite time of year at Elon.
The last picture I will ever take of the Pendulum office before it's torn down. So sad to think about that.


Friday, December 17
Sunrise from my balcony

My very first Christmas cards received as a real person with a real address. Thanks Alexa and Christine!

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Continuing the photo adventure: Thousand a Day, year two

It really wasn't a question whether I wanted to continue taking a photo worth a thousand words a day. So here I am, catching up with posting the photos I've taken each day since the one-year anniversary of "Thousand a Day."

Tuesday, December 14
I had to get creative with hanging lights outside my apartment since nails and tape would not work, so I decided to twist them around my balconies instead.

Monday, December 13
A few favorite ornaments

Sunday, December 12
Tonight, I decorated my very first Christmas tree

Saturday, December 11
Christmas bouquet

Friday, December 10
My first attempt at banana bread: Semi-fail for two reasons. 1. I have no bread pan in which to bake the bread, thus I resorted to using a bundt and these mini acorn/pinecone/pumpkin/walnut shapes. 2. The bundt was in the oven too long...50 minutes must apply to the bread pan, not the bundt, so it wasn't as moist as it should have been. Sigh.

Thursday, December 9
Today was my office Christmas party and part of the random gift I picked from under the tree was a little bottle of Jack Daniels. Of course. I instantly knew this was perfect for Leo Smith Chompers Francis Whittington.

Wednesday, December 8
When my mom went to Germany this summer to visit our family, the one thing I wanted most was a genuine cuckoo clock from the Black Forest. Sure enough, my mom found a beautiful one for me and we got to hang it up in my apartment this weekend. The cuckoo bird pops out of his door, dancers twirl on the balcony and the little German men cheers their beer.


Tuesday, December 7
Tonight's brand new creation in the kitchen: salmon and asparagus pasta with sour cream sauce

Monday, December 6
Roses from Mom and Dad

Sunday, December 5
My bird lamp finally has a hat!

Saturday, December 4
Here's my new rule for round two of Thousand a Day: I can post multiple photos in one day. I did the same thing last year, but this year I'm making it an official OK move.

Mom and Dad were visiting this weekend and we went to the Brandywine River Museum to buy some of the critter ornaments I was introduced to at work when I edited a video about them. A bunch of the critters were on display throughout the museum and there was a room filled with elaborate train sets.

Friday, December 3
Tonight was the Division II high school state championship game, St. Elizabeth vs. Archmere. Damian and I journeyed down to DSU's football stadium in Dover. I shot from the roof above the press box while Damian shot from the sidelines. It. Was. Cold. But a great time as always. It's definitely depressing to be done with football, though...going to be weird having to work normal hours on Fridays.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Thousands of stories in 365 photos

It was Dec. 3, 2009, the night of Elon's Luminarias, my favorite annual tradition at Elon when the campus becomes even more magical than usual as it is covered in lights for the holidays. That night, I took my first photo for "A thousand a day..."

It has been a whole year since I started the "thousand a day" photo project with my friend David. The morning of the Luminarias, David and I were sitting in the Pendulum office - at the computers in the center of the room, if I remember correctly - and he pitched an idea for a photo project. We would set out to take a photo every single day for a year. A picture's worth a thousand words, and we wanted 365,000 of them. Here is my very first "thousand a day" post. And this was the first photo I took that night:
I came to the bittersweet realization that our "thousand a day" project was coming to an end as soon as December hit. I remembered the reason David wanted to start the project and the reason behind the name. We wanted to take photos for us - not for the school paper, not for classes, not for work. These photos would be taken purely for ourselves, so we might start to see the little details in things and people we encounter every day. I quickly learned the reasoning was not selfish - we wanted to share the photos with one another, with our families, with our friends. And when I think about that, I also know the reason why I was able to stick to this project. I didn't want to let those people down. Any time I'd post my photos, I'd always check David's and a few of our other friends who tried the project with us. When I saw their photos, it was a comfort knowing I was not alone in the project. I had people to cheer on and they were there to cheer me on.

Finding a thousand words in one day to share with others was not hard. Every day has its mini stories, its big events, its exciting moments and its own adventures. Some days were far more telling than others and the challenge was greater on those days. I remember thinking to myself a few times, "Here I sit, it's 11 p.m. and I still haven't taken a photo of the day. Now what?" I was disappointed with myself for thinking it and then I'd manage to find some trinket lying around my home to photograph in a new light, a fun angle.

And then I would have a month in Japan, a photo adventure in an abandoned house in Gibsonville, NC, or 24 hours at a dance marathon. It's those days I would look forward to most because I knew I would take hundreds of photos from which to choose. I live for adventures like those, the ones that scream, "Photograph the heck out of me!" And I live to share moments like those with my friends and family.

Whether we continue the project or not, I know we had a wonderful journey. Photography was always on my mind. I was constantly thinking in terms of framing, angles, lighting, a camera setting I had not tried yet. I have always seen and appreciated the little things in life, but this project encouraged me to share that beauty. So, thank you for sticking with me for so long. Your comments and words of encouragement have made this project the happy success that it has been. I have loved every syllable of the 365,000 words and every pixel of the 365 photos I've been able to share with you.

You can see all 365 photos here, but here are a few of my favorites: