Jon’s Diary

On January 1st 2010 I started a new project, Snap365.

The idea of Snap365 is simple. Take a photograph every day for a year. The only rule I’ve given myself is that the photo for each day must be taken on that day. No taking 7 pictures on a Sunday and chilling out for a week.
I will try to upload the pictures the same day I take them, but this may not always be possible.

The inspiration for Snap365 came from my desire to buy a new lens. For a long time I’d wanted to buy Nikon’s 18-200mm lens with built-in vibration reduction. The lens costs approx. £580 so it’s not a purchase to be taken without consideration. I had put off buying it for about a year or more due to the cost, but by the end of 2009 I finally had the money available. Once again I considered buying it, but then realised that for over 6 months I hadn’t taken a single photo with my SLR. The last photos I’d taken were in May when I bought my Exige.

I decided that there was no way I could justify spending £580 on a lens for a camera that I didn’t use. Infact there was no justification for me having the camera at all if I didn’t use it. So, in a “use it or lose it” moment, I came up with the idea for Snap365. Since starting the project and telling people about it a lot have replied with “Ooh, my friend XXX did that last year”, or “My friend XXX is doing that too”, or even “Did you see/read XXX? They recommended doing that this year”.
No, I didn’t read/see/hear about this from anybody else, and I don’t really care about anybody elses projects. This is something I’m doing for myself more than anything else, as an effort to get back into photography.

The website is more of a motivational “you better take your picture, people might be watching” rather than a “look at my photos” thing. A year is a long time, and I’m a lazy person. I need to feel that people are watching to motivate me to do this on a daily basis.

So here we are on day 16. So far so good. It’s a Saturday, and I have a day of work ahead of me including a wonderful tax return. To top things off, the weather outside is miserable. Once again, I have absolutely no idea what to take a photo of today!

Wish me luck!

The rate of introductions into the cabinet has slowed somewhat, and in the last few weeks only two new members have been added.

First of all there’s John Major, the grey man who blends into the background:

(He’s a two-spot goby)

And then there’s Boris … who is somewhat odd:

(And he’s a pink-spotted flymo, or rockskipper. Yes, he has orange spots … I did say he was odd!)

Since my last post we’ve got a few new fish and corals in our fish tank. Now that I’ve finally had time to take some pictures and upload them … here they are!

An Azure Damsel Fish. This one is called Gordon:

An angry damsel with its spiky mohawk up:

This is Cherie, a Royal Gramma (with Tony the other Azure Damsel in the background):

Two Clown Fish, as yet unnamed:

A Cleaner Shrimp called “Little”. His brother “Large” is hiding:

A month after arriving, PJ is still looking healthy and happy:

Here he is again looking for food on the rocks:

Two giant mushrooms:

Having been trampled on by the shrimp in the background, one mushroom has retracted its polyps:

Another new hard coral:

A “feather duster” or tube worm:

A new soft coral with “grabby hands”:

And the whole lot, with the damsels being friendly for once!

In the last couple of weeks there have been a few new occupants of the cabinet, our fish tank.

First there were Jeffrey and Neil, two Fire Shrimp:

And today Peter Benjamin, a male Blue Mandarin, arrived to join the party!

I’ve been pretty lazy with my diary this year. It’s not that I’ve had nothing to talk about, or no pictures to upload, I’ve just not yet found the motivation to do it.

Anyway, to get things rolling, here are a few photos of what you’ve (not) been missing.

Me on track at Cadwell Park, back in June 2006:

(continue reading…)