The adventure begins again.

Have you begun to wonder if 365 Faces of the Year will ever be finished? If so - the wait is about to end.

This weekend I will resume with the post processing of the project and I will continue at the rate of one per day with typing, post processing and hopefully posting the images I spent all of last year shooting. I can't tell if I'm excited, anxious or some strange mix of the two. But if you've been waiting to see a friend, family member, or even yourself here - the wait between new posts is almost over. And then I'll be posting frequently again. Thanks for waiting with me!

Day 365

Today is Day 365.

...I made it!

On August 28th 2007 I wrote and posted this on the blog:

“365 Faces of the Year

This project is an attempt to explore how people wish to define themselves in conjunction with what a stranger sees. For the next 365 days, I will attempt to meet, interview and photograph one person per day. I’d like to meet and learn about as many people as possible during the course of this project, thus I will hopefully interacting mainly with people met for the sake of the project. While it is the goal to meet and learn about new people- I will also try to include old friends, acquaintances and family members in order to get to know them all better as well. The photography side of the project will include a snapshot portrait taken immediately after the interview. Right now I have two black leather notebooks in which to record the interviews and paste in photographs, however I’d like to expand the project in a more finished form when nearing completion of the year.

I’ve been planning on doing a project of this nature for a while and thus far it has been put on the back burner. I’m hoping once I get over the initially hurdle of starting it, it will pay off however. I have been a photo blogger on two of my own sites recently ( urv & United Random Visions Inc.), though both of these are rather free form. I’m hoping a more organized project will help motivate and inspire me to not get stuck in a rut with the type of photography I do. I’m a freelancing amateur who’s taken several workshop classes at Foothill College and I was Photo Student of the Year my senior year in high school. Anyway- that’s enough about me. I hope you’ll enjoy looking at this project as it progresses!”

I gave up on the black leather notebooks early on because it was more convenient to keep pieces of binder paper in my photo bag which made it easier to carry everything with me at any given point. I met many people, I also did include old friends, acquaintances and family members and I’m really glad I did. Right now looking through the interviews it feels like I interviewed many more friends than strangers, however many of those friends were met for the sake of the project and over the course of the year became friends- which I am incredibly grateful for.

The initial hurdle to start was tough, but I think the hardest portions of the project were not the interviews themselves, it was getting up and out of the house after multiple all-nighters, during finals, when stressed from college applications, going out after a long day of work and so forth. During the interviews I always loved the project, but some days wandering around looking for a person to meet was exhausting to a degree I didn’t anticipate, though once I was sitting and talking I am pretty sure the goofy grin returned to my face as when reflecting I remember enjoyment more than anything when with people.
As for what this project has done to my photography – I think it is still too early to say as I’ve not yet uploaded the majority of the project. But it has helped my confidence a great deal because I got a chance to prove to myself even if I’m not the best at meeting other peoples’ standards, when I set a goal and say “I WILL do this” then I can in fact hold myself to such promises.

In case you were going to ask what's next, I'm just going to enjoy this for a bit before thinking about uploading/organizing/sharing the product.
Thanks for being here to enjoy this with me!

-Urvi

Song of today:
Let's See How Far We've Come by Matchbox Twenty

Absent Not Inactive!

Sorry for the absence of posts and updates, I assure you this project has not died yet. I’m trying during the wee morning hours of the 24th of September, and thus far have done 23 days of interviews and photos. My hand has fully healed and there is only a bit of light brown scarring where the burn was. If you didn’t know my hand was burnt you’d probably not even notice, or if you did you’d more likely assume I had residue of mocha on my hand. (I work at a starbucks thus the mocha assumption isn’t that far from the truth sometimes). I was rather surprised at the strength of the pain killers they gave me. Very effectively they stopped the pain, but they also made me drowsy and I wasn’t too safe for driving. Thus in the morning for the next three days I only took aspirin that way I could still go out. Then in the afternoon I took the pain killers that were prescribed to me. Also despite getting the burn on a Sunday evening, it hurt enough that I kept it on ice until Tuesday night and then on and off for the Wednesday. One interesting adventure down- many more to come? School has also just resumed, thus I’m now juggling classes, work, TAing a class, trying to do this project and figure out where I’d like to go once I’m done with Foothill. While some days are harder than others, I’ve had the dumb luck to be invited to various social events where I only know one or two people. Such events are utterly ideal as there are many people to meet and potentially interview, and this project ends up being a great conversation starter. The other perks is at social events the answers I get are also more in depth. Though I don’t know how much time I’ll have for social activities now that school is in session.

Also I’ve just finalized plans for a family trip this October. During the end of the month we’ll be visiting Portugal, London and Spain. Which I’m thinking will be an excellent opportunity to meet new people. I’ll definitely have to get someone during the stop over in New York so I don’t lose a day during the extended flights. But that’s a few weeks away. For now it’s nearly 3 am and I should go to bed so I can get 3 hours of sleep before work starts. I’ll try to get my act together with uploading, processing and posting- but no promises. I’m keeping up with the interview side- and for now that’s challenge enough.