365 days of 2013 - January in review

Documenting each day of twenty thirteen.

365 days of 2013 - a task I committed myself to without much forethought on the first of January 2013. Something of a photo diary, snapping at least one pic (on my cellphone or snazzy dSLR) to mark each day of the year as it passes. There are several reasons to take on something like this, not least of these is the attempt at making each day count. Life's not about the number of breaths you take, but the moments that take your breath away, quote unquote fortune cookie catchphrases.

There are also just as many reasons not to take on a project like this. It's easy to become dissatisfied with being content. FOMO (fear of missing out, lucky you if you didn't know that) is a very real danger in our social networking obsessed generation. Like this, check in here, tag that, share this, comment on all of these...

However, if there's any one quote I'd like to carry through life with me, it's this: 

The unexamined life is not worth living.

- Socrates

And what better way to examine life is there than to keep a photo journal?

So here's a montage of January moments

Number of work-related pics: 8

Number of friends in pics: 8

Number of pics taken in new places: 11

Number of pics involving food: 12

Do the photos I've chosen to represent each day of January 2013 indicate in some way my priorities? Or do the categories I've chosen to group my pics into imply something? Perhaps we find meaning where we look for it. 

At any rate, it's funny what memories are most vivid when I reminisce without a visual stimulus to prompt me. When I think back now on my January, what is foremost in my mind is the many hours of hard work and late nights/early mornings, easily eclipsing many of the fantastic adventures I had. I clearly need to work on my attitude!

Sadly, on some of the days I was really scrambling to find a pic of something that I felt was worthy of making it into the photo diary (notice the coffee machine?), and on others I had several to choose from (that's where the montages come from). 

What I'll be taking into February is this: to do more of the things I think about doing, or say I'd like to do.

Hopefully, with this attitude it will finally become about the living of life and not just the documentation of it in photographic form. After all, it's not about the photos, but what the photos are capturing.