365 in 2014: A reflection

365 in 2014...well, 356 actually. That's like 98% - or an A+ grade. I'll take it.

When I finished the year and got my final post up last month, I took a look back at why I decided to do it in the first place and reflected on the experience (or experiment?). At the beginning of the year when I started, I found that I had to be super conscious about remembering to take a photo every day but it made me look at the world in a different way – I carried at least one camera with me at all times and it was pretty much always in the back of my mind that I would take at least one photo at some point during the day....well, except for those nine days. I was always looking for interesting things or beautiful places, and I’d often go out of my way in search of them. I learnt a little about composition and what makes a good photo, mainly through trial and error, and got real joy out of taking a cool photo that I was proud of. But there were also days I struggled to find photo-worthy things - hey, life is boring sometimes - and occasionally took photos simply because I needed one for the day. I tried to keep those ones interesting, but I’m not going to lie - sometimes it was 10pm and I’d realised I hadn't taken a photo, so I had to search for something around my house that might be vaguely interesting to other people. And some days I just plain forgot. And other days I took loads of great photos, and it was hard to choose just one.

I realised just how much I like taking photos – so much so that I bought a digital SLR camera half way through the year and did a five week photography class with a friend, which I really enjoyed and hopefully it resulted in some improvement in my technical ability – although the quality of my photos depended on which of the three cameras – mobile, point and shoot or digital SLR - I had on me at the time!

I think when I decided to start this, I was also thinking about how fast time seems to go the older you get, and how quickly things can change. Over the course of the year my boyfriend and I split up, got back together, and moved in to our own place. We got a kitten, I changed jobs, went on several trips and sold my car. In some ways, it was a pretty intense year. Looking back, I also appreciate how much fun my life is and how lucky I am to have so many opportunities to take photos of new, interesting, different and beautiful things, places and experiences – and now I have a permanent record of a whole year of my life.

And I realised that I quite like taking photos of food. I've always enjoyed food – cooking it, looking at it, eating it….and so my next incarnation of my ever-changing blog will be sort of food review blog. I realise there are millions of these out there, but it’s what I love and something I can draw from in my every day. I'm going to write about recipes I've tried – what was good about them, what wasn't so good about, how I personalised the recipes or what I’d do differently next time, and what occasions they might be good for. As I also love to eat out, I am going to mix it up with some reviews of places I eat out, in Wellington....or wherever I happen to be.

I hope you've enjoyed this visual account of my 2014, and you've found something to inspire, intrigue, inform or just entertain you. And as a nice way to close it off, here are my favourite photos of the year, one for every month.