The end of my 2nd 365 days of
photographs project, I never thought I would be doing this project again, and
even said numerous times that I wouldn’t do it. The reason I wanted to get back
into working on such an extreme, challenging, unforgiving, and long project was
when I dropped out of Art school I though that I needed something to push
myself to create more, different and better photographs sense I wasn’t going to
be in school for a semester (which ended turning into a year of being out of
school). Starting this project was a
breeze by making lots of my preconceived ideas from my notes I took over the
month before the project started, but before I could get a few months in I felt
like I had lost a lot of creativity and motivation, It just started to strain
me and my life. I am a person that is unable to just give up on any thing I put
my heart into or had my heart in, so I pushed on to create some photographs
that I am really excited on, but it also came with a bunch of ok and so so
photos that I didn’t care for as much. I found that no matter how much you can
prepare for a project like this you can never know what life will bring you in
a year.
I wanted to make this project a new
great photograph every day, but life ended up getting in the way many times
over this past year. This years project ended up being much harder and
stressful than the first, and extremely draining to my life and my creativity.
With that said I am disappointed that I wasn’t able to complete many of the
ideas that were on my list, but I am extremely happy with the few ideas that
did come to light. This year was
extremely rough on me with relationships and friends, I lost a lot of people
who I thought were good friends of mine that turned out not to be. It was also
extremely hard losing my Great grandma, she was one of the only people besides
my parents who truly cared for me and who was a great person. This year just
ended up being a really hard year, even though there was a lot of bad times
this year there has also been a lot of good days.
I will always remember the
countless adventures I went on through this whole year, from Portland to Las
Vegas, I was able to see so much and experience it with so many people that I
love. There were a lot of amazing
adventures up to the Donner Tunnels, around Folsom Lake, San Francisco, Big
Sur, all around Nevada, and Yosemite. This year was full of adventures and some
really fun days and nights. Even though this year and its 365 project had lots
of hardships I wouldn’t trade it for any thing, I have grown again so much
through this project and year in knowing more about myself and my art. This
year showed me that I need to get out adventure more and see different places
and not limit myself by staying in the Sacramento area. At the beginning of 2014
I will be moving to Las Vegas to go finish my degree in photography, and start
a new adventure in life.
I want to thank all my good friends
who helped me out on this project, and a special shout out to Chris, Archie,
Sean, Lisa, Kyle, John and the RCK// guys for helping me with many of my photos
through out this year. I want to specially thank My Family for supporting me
through this project; I wouldn’t have been able to do it with out you. I’m not
going to say I am never going to do this project again, but for now I am going
to go out and enjoy life for a while. Thank you all.
Sincerely,
Sincerely,
- William Mark Sommer
