When we started this tumblr, the nominal intentional was for it to serve as the output channel for one of those “365 Photo Projects” - hence the name Bluefiresweetly 365.  We felt that in terms of quality x quantity axis, we were doing okay in the quality portion of the domain - that is to say, given sufficient planning time, setup and appropriate conditions, we were starting to generate photos that fit in line with the images in our head.  Not perfect, and there remains so much more to learn and grow in that respect, but still, we were making progress.

There’s exists, of course, the other component in the journey of photographic growth, which is quantity.  There’s probably a few relevant quotes we could pick out here: Bruce Lee’s: “I fear not the man who has practised 10,000 kicks once, but a single kick 10,000 times.” or perhaps more apropos the current topic, Henri Cartier-Bresson famous: “Your first 10,000 photographs are you worst.”

In either case, the main thrust is, excellence (or at least growth) in any given domain is generally the product of study x practise, or put another way - the more photos you take, the better you tend to get, especially if you’re studying along the way also.

So with that, we resolved to take a photograph everyday, the tumblr was the way we were going to force ourselves to do that, and that was that.

In the process, however, we stumbled across the rather interesting fact that we actually are already sitting atop a vast backlog of photographic work that has yet to be processed and output somewhere.  The value from taking a photo every day comes not only from the actual moment of taking the photo (the searching, the composing, the capture and other techniques of that so-called decisive moment) but also the review, culling, editing and outputting of the photo.  If you don’t review, edit and post your photos, you are missing half (or perhaps more) of the benefit of a prodigious photography practise regimen.

So perhaps the, the purpose of Bluefiresweetly 365 should not be only to strictly adhere to posting a single photo taken on that day, but also going through, reviewing and surfacing some of the thousands of photos we’ve already taken in the past year but which have never seen the light of day yet - such as the one above.

There’s more to say on this subject - such as the fact that was originally intended to be single line comments / titles for photos in the tumblr have somehow grown in the past few days into miniature posts - and what that means for a different type of study x practise - mainly writing - but that shall have to come later.

For those interested, you can see more of our (non-client) work over at http://www.bluefiresweetly.com/