Take A Photograph Everyday, January 2020
Take a photograph everyday for a year is the challenge I set myself for 2020.
Basically that means taking at least one photograph and posting it to my Facebook Page.
To date I’ve gone outside to take a photograph everyday, and I hope I’ll continue to do that.
At the same time I haven’t ruled out resorting to some indoor everyday photography, if necessary.
Most years have 365 days in them, so this is called a 365 photo project, or something similar.
2020 is a leap year and has 366 days though, so I’m calling this one a 366 photo project.
You can see the photos I posted everyday here on my Enjoy Your Photography Facebook Page.
I shot several photographs everyday so in this article I’m showing some of the ones I didn’t choose.
I also started a different 366 photo project and I’ll get to that later on in this article also.
The first photograph everyday of the year
Most of January was wet and misty here so it wasn’t great weather for big landscape photographs.
Because of that the scope of everyday photography ideas I was able to consider was mostly limited.
The one I uploaded on 1st January was a close up of a boat on the River Corrib.
New Year’s Day wasn’t one of the wettest or mistiest days but it had a featureless grey sky.
We get a lot of days with sky’s like that in the West of Ireland, not nice in photographs.
The photograph above is similar to the one I chose, but with three boats included.
The rising sun
The 3rd January was a fine morning and I saw that there was a nice sunrise developing.
At this time of year there’s usually very heavy traffic in Galway and it’s hard to get around.
However it was still holiday time and the usually thronged roads were virtually empty.
There was time to get to The Claddagh before the sun had risen too far.
The photograph I posted on the day shows some of it, but it had been more spectacular.
As a contrast the photograph above is shot facing away from the rising sun taken at the same time.
In mid summer the sun rises much earlier, before the roads turn into a car park.
Hopefully I’ll get out then and photograph some spectacular sunrises.
A blue sky
On January 6th we had a blue sky giving me a chance to some photos with a lot of sky.
I shot some photographs of Lough Corrib at Anglingham at one of the lake’s widest points.
The photo I didn’t use and is just above here, has more of the sky than the one I did use.
When there’s a blue sky, it starts a faint blue near the horizon, and gets more intense as it rises.
Directly overhead it gets to its bluest, going from a light shade of azure blue to ultramarine.
Zooming in as in the facebook photo, you shoot close to the horizon and the colour is subdued.
The photo on this page is a wider angle and the sky is much bluer.
The grey sky returns
On the 7th I narrowed it down to a choice of two, the one chosen and the one above.
The blue skies from the previous day had taken themselves off again, being replaced by the common, grey, featureless sky.
They were both shot from the same place, in Renmore on the South of Lough Atalia.
The one I posted on Facebook was a view of the WellPark Shopping Centre.
It was a hard decision to choose it over the view of Lough Atalia Road just above.
Neither are great photos but the one I used has a little more detail in the grey sky.
For Rugby fans the Stadium in the photo above is the SportsGround, the home of Connacht Rugby.
Lough Atalia means salty lake, and that’s what it is, a saltwater lake, most lakes don’t have salty water.
I shot in two locations
The big challenge of doing a 366 photo project is finding things to photograph everyday.
I get into the car and drive off everyday, sometimes with a destination in mind, and others without.
On the 8th I went to a specific location, took some photographs, and took some others on the way back.
The one I posted on facebook was a view from The Claddagh, near to Galway City Centre.
The Claddagh is the home of the well known and loved item of jewellery. The Claddagh Ring.
On this page I include one from the original destination, at the West of the City.
I shot far more frames there than I shot where I stopped off on the way home.
However I liked the one I chose better than the first batch I photographed.
Using a telephoto lens
When the weather is miserable as it usually is in January it’s not as easy to find subjects to photograph.
It’s better to get out a telephoto lens, zoom in on things, and fill the frame with something.
One plus point is that you can get several photographs in one location that don’t look connected.
In nicer weather there would be a temptation to get out a wide angle lens and include a lot more.
This is one of five occasions that I took photographs at this location in January, and I’ll be back.
The location is Woodquay where the River Corrib enters Galway City, before exiting at The Claddagh.
The photograph I used that day was of pillars in the river, over which a Railway Track once ran.
In 1935 the rail was last used, and ten years later it was dismantled, leaving these pillars as a reminder.
The photo above is a nearby Rowing Club club house, one of several in this area.
Rowing clubs and Cormorants
In the photograph above is another Rowing and Yachting clubhouse, which is very close to the previous one.
This one is a pleasure boating club, rather than one that has crews that compete at regattas.
Rowing is a very popular sport in Galway, with at least five clubs based in this area.
In the photo I posted you can see some water birds standing on rocks in the river.
The one with its wings spread is a Cormorant, and they can often be seen in that stance.
While they can stand like that for some time, this one shut its wings again in about a second.
Silver Strand
On the 14th January I took myself off to the West again, a little outside town this time.
The photo I used on facebook was a view of Silver Strand one of several beaches around the City.
This is the most Westerly of the City beaches, and the first one along the coast into Connemara.a`
The photograph above I shot coming away from Silver Strand, showing the top of two houses in a rural setting.
Galway Docks
In 2009 Galway Docks was transformed for the Volvo Ocean Race, and still looks so much better than before that.
It used to be an eyesore but is very much a feature of the City now.
Both photographs, the facebook one and the one I’m including here show views of the docks now.
The day was rather bright so it was a chance to get out a wide angle lens for a change.
Some of the pleasure boats that populate the docks can be seen on facebook, with a blue sky.
The second photo that I’m using here shows the road on the West side of the docks.
There were several other shots I could have used out of this lot, unlike most other days so far.
Some boats in Spiddal Harbour
Connemara is the Western part of County Galway, between Lough Corrib and the Atlantic Ocean.
Spiddal is a seaside town on the Connemara coast about twelve miles North of the City.
The facebook photo I chose today shows a view of part of the harbour in Spiddal.
The boats that use the harbour are all small craft like the ones in the photo.
Among the photos that weren’t chosen was this close up of some of the boats.
It was a bright day and again there were several useable shots, but I have to choose one.
A taste of Connemara
Some people don’t like Wind Turbines visually, they reckon they spoil the landscape.
I can’t say that I think they enhance it very much, I don’t think they ruin it.
The photograph I posted on facebook show some of them in the Barna area in South Connemara.
Like them or not they’re part of the Irish landscape at present and probably will be for some time.
The photo above, from the same day, shows a landscape just a few miles away.
Connemara is a region with some of the best rural scenery in all of Ireland.
It’s hard to avoid election posters
We’re having a General Election at the moment and I was about to post this photo.
Then I saw the election posters which I hadn’t noticed while taking the photograph.
There are so many of them around that I’m almost immune to seeing them at this stage.
Thankfully it’s going to be over in a few more days, and I hope it doesn’t end in another one.
It’s a photo of a bridge in Oranmore, the first town South of Galway City.
The one I chose instead was shot very close to that, but it’s election poster free.
It shows three empty park benches looking out onto Galway Bay, and it was a misty day.
Photographing football
On 26th I photographed a football game between Galway Women Under 17 and Ireland Women Under 15.
I posted a photograph of a club house in Eamonn Deacy Park, where the game was played on facebook.
Here I have an action shot from the game itself showing a player from each team.
Normally I shoot in either Aperture Priority or Manual modes, but here I used Shutter Priority.
I shot at 1/500th of a second to be sure to get mostly sharp photographs.
The lens I used was a 55-250 Zoom Lens, to cover near and far photos in quick succession.
Play moves up, down and across the pitch very fast and you have to respond just as fast.
There was plenty of daylight so there was no possible problem with a lack of light.
Photos from Menlo Pier
The next photograph was taken at Menlo Pier was is a village a few miles from Galway City.
On facebook I posted a photo showing the end of the pier and some rowing boats moored there.
This is very close to where Lough Corrib gives way to the River Corrib, which flows South from here.
The photograph above was taken from the same place but looking from the right side of the pier.
This is the village that gave its name to Menlo Park in California, which was founded by people from here.
North of Galway City
On the last day of January my facebook photo was a view of Ballindooley Castle.
This castle is just a little North of Galway City, right on the side of the Galway to Headford road.
I shot this view of the castle from another road, looking across some countryside.
The photo on this page is a landscape from the Corrandulla area several miles North of Ballindooley Castle.
It shows a view of the Cregg River in Co. Galway between Loughgeorge and Corrandulla.
Not great beach weather
Ballyloughane Beach is the most Southerly beach in Galway City, and where this photograph was taken.
It shows a view of the beach with a single person walking and playing with a dog.
The miserable weather made an unpleasant day for visiting a beach for the usual seaside recreation.
For the facebook photo on that day I chose a shot of a person sitting on a park bench.
The person is dressed for wet weather as is sitting looking past the beach and out to sea.
A second year long photo project
The normal yearly photo project involves taking at least one photograph everyday for a whole year.
However I’ve had an idea for another year long project and I decided to start that as well.
In 2012 I completed a photograph everyday project for the first time which I wrote about here.
I didn’t post that online but I did want to see how it was progressing through the year.
To do so I decided to display it in groups of nine photos three across and three down.
Three hundred and sixty six divided by nine comes to forty with six left over.
I saved very reduced copies of all the photographs to make the nine photo grids of a manageable size.
To make all forty one images of equal size I made a banner for the first image.
The banner was the same size as three of the reduced photos placed side by side.
The challenge in this project is to shoot forty one themed grids of nine photos each
Would I shoot a photograph everyday or nine a day on forty occasions during the year?
Obviously if I did the latter, I would need to shoot one set of six to complete the number.
I decided that I’d shoot the sets of nine in one go each as the year progresses.
The first six days
To start, I decided to get the group of six done first and put a banner on top of it.
The banner is just a simple one indicating what the project is all about; 366 photos during 2020.
A new year always starts with the last six days of Christmas, so that was the first theme.
I shot six decorations on the Christmas Tree before taking it down and putting it away until needed again.
On the tree I found three sets of two similar decorations and they were the images I made.
I think I arranged them as well as they could be, or at least I hope i did.
The rest of January
For the grid to represent the days 7th January to 15th January, I shot chess pieces on a board.
I placed some chess pieces on a board and took a series of shots of them.
They’re shot from several different angles, and also from a number of different focal lengths.
When editing them I altered some, so that they didn’t look too similar when fitted together.
The next image covering the period from 16th January to 24th January is the last one completed in the first month.
For this series of photographs I focused on a decorative Table Lamp.
I shot a lot of photographs from different angles and again at different focal lengths like the previous set.
Again I chose nine of the photographs and grouped them together in a nine shot grid.
