day three hundred sixty five!

“Photography is easy, photography is difficult.

It’s so easy it’s ridiculous. It’s so easy that I can’t even begin – I just don’t know where to start. After all, it’s just looking at things. We all do that. It’s simply a way of recording what you see – point the camera at it, and press a button. How hard is that? And what’s more, in this digital age, its free - doesn’t even cost you the price of film. It’s so simple and basic, it’s laughable.

It’s so difficult because it’s everywhere, every place, all the time, even right now. It’s the view of this pen in my hand as I write this, it’s an image of you reading now. Drift your consciousness up and out of this text and see: it’s right there, across the room - there… and there. Then it’s gone. You didn’t photograph it, because you didn’t think it was worth it. And now it’s too late, that moment has evaporated. But another one has arrived, instantly. Now. Because life is flowing through and around us, rushing onwards and outwards, in every direction.”

—	Paul Graham

whoa. three hundred and sixty five days. a whole YEAR of photos. that's nuts.

this project is nuts. but also it's the best.

This year has been an extraordinary, joyful, weird, awesome, fun, sad, great, average, exciting, happy, tiring, special, surprising, fancy, wonderful one. I made new friends and saw old ones move away, I learned and grew, traveled and stayed still, I partied and moped, spent time with good people and ate good food and went cool places. Someday when I'm thinking back on my eighteenth year of life, I'll be able to dig out these pictures and remember it all so much more vividly. The exciting stuff and the boring stuff. It all matters and it's all wonderful. 
Photography is so cool. It's teaching me how to see things and how to appreciate moments. This project has helped me learn to take photos just for me, just because it's special and makes me happy, and not striving to impress. I'm learning how to capture moments without hesitating or feeling awkward. It's so worth it.
I definitely do not love each photo on its own, but as a whole, this set of photographs is something special. I am happy. There are quite a few (especially towards the end) that were not taken on the correct date at all, or were taken very last-minute, and there are way more iPhone pictures than I would've liked, but that's okay. Being done is great, it's been hard to stay motivated. I won't keep taking photos every single day, but I hope I never get tired of documenting my normal life. It's really awesome.

Thank you, thank you, to everyone who looked at these photos, for all of the love, all of the sweet words. I'm always surprised to find out when people are following along with this. 
And hey, thanks for putting up with my reoccurring photos of cats and trees and coffee.