It’s been weeks I wanted to try to complete a project around the Star Wars Advent Calendar. The goal was to take each day a photo of the daily gift of the calendar. I wanted to see if I was able to keep on shooting at least a picture each day for a few weeks.
I knew in advance that it was going to be hard. Indeed at the beginning of December I had to attend a 3-day seminar for my job. It meant that I was going to stay in a small hotel room, with a limited amount of toys and almost no free time for photography. It turned out it was even worse than what I imagined: I only had each day 10 minutes in the morning to take my daily picture. There was also the uninteresting gifts of the calendar, such as weapon racks for which it is hard to do something interesting, in particular if you want to avoid using minifigures from the following day.
On these 24 days I went through different stages. After the first days that were shot in my small hotel room with very poor lightning, I started to enjoy this project. Around the middle of the calendar it looked like it was going to be easier to complete it than what I initially thought. But towards the end it started to lose enthusiasm. I found that it became more and more repetitive. I was frustrated of being stuck with the LEGO calendar, sometimes having to shoot things I don’t want to shoot like weapon rack or stud shooters. I was also frustrated by having to rely upon basic setup due to the lack of time I had some days after work.
Overall there are a few pictures that I am rather satisfied, but there are a lot more that could have been better if I had more time available. Now I’m happy it is over. I will be able to focus on the photos I want to take. I also have in stock a dozen of photos I took on days when I had more free time and that were not related to the calendar.
Margaret (aka MaggieGem) 2016-01-01
I think you a fantastic job on this project. Shooting a daily photo is definitely a mighty task, despite the challenge you completed it, bravo!
Reiterlied 2016-01-02 — Post Author
Thanks Maggie! I checked: it’s actually the first time I take photos for 24 days in a row. Even when I travel and take a few hundreds of photos each day there is usually a day where I decide to pause and take less/no photos. I’m completely in awe of people that are able to do this for a year, and even more when they start another 35 project the next year.