The Year in Review

A year ago, I did something amazing, for me. I decided to participate in Flickr's self-portrait a day for 365 days. It was extraordinary for me because I'm always the person behind the camera. I hate having my photo taken. I hate the way I look in pictures, especially when I weigh this much. So to voluntarily post a photo of myself on line for 365 days was pretty incredible.

I ended the project today with what may be my favorite picture. It's a perfect photo for ME to end the 365 project. I got bolder as the year progressed and started making fun of myself--that was fun.

There aren't 365 pictures of my face in this project. Occasionally you only see my hands.

At some point I started doing "FUTABs," which stands for "It's Friday, so put your feet up and take a break." My FUTABs would have been more interesting if I had a large collection of cute shoes, but I did them anyway, even though in most I was wearing Birkinstocks. This was my favorite FUTAB.

I had fun putting myself in famous works of art. I think this was my favorite.

This photo also includes James (whose handle is "gaymay"), who had put himself in this Edward Hopper painting. I took his version and added to it by putting myself at the counter of the diner. It took a long time to do and was a great way to work with PhotoShop.

The project also became my diary, recording the happy times...

(Of COURSE I'm in this...see my thumb in the lower left?)

...and the sad times.

Taken at Michele's funeral

And it also helped me keep track of when was the last time I donated blood!

Naturally, the year's photos include lots and lots and lots of dogs!

Mabel

But one of the best things about the project was joining the community of people who were doing it as well. There was the aforementioned "gaymay" who had such amazingly creative ideas. His "Snow White and Her Dwarves" set gave us all a lot of laughs.

Then there was "lrayholly," who continues to inspire me so much with her constant striving to do better photographically (she is in her second year of the project now). We also were "expectant grandmothers" together and worked to create a collaborative photo for each of our sites.

Cool Ice Blue started the project when his terminally ill young son was in the hospital and the project took him through the boy's last days, his funeral, and working through the grief. His raw emotion permeated his photos and it was good to see him begin to emerge from the black cloud.

Old Shoe Woman is on day 100 of her second year. She's a teacher and shares a lot of her classroom projects.

NanaJ and her husband Tojosan became friends, and Tojosan became a Scrabble partner on Facebook.

FossilFreak was someone I had actually met before, lives nearby and actually I ran into recently at a show I was reviewing.

So many people...so many friends...so many ideas. It was sad to think of it all coming to the end, so I've decided to do the only logical thing: I start the 365 project, year 2 tomorrow! After all in the coming year I'll have a new grandchild, a new treadmill, and be working on getting in shape for our big trip next year, so there should be lots of new photo opportunities.

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COUSINS DAY TOMORROW!!! Yay! We have all been missing it. Tomorrow's entry will be late.