A Zanesville a Day

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

End

482 posts later, I am done. That adds up to more than 450 photos, including a couple that I still have not gotten around to uploading. I started this project with the intention of continuing for a year, and then set a second goal of 500 images. But it is time to stop.

I has been a fun little project, but I find myself scrambling to find an image as quickly as I can so I can spend my precious free time with the family, and too many pictures at the end have been a case of settling for something, anything, to fulfill my self commitment. Truthfully, I thought about ending it months ago, but I got a sad feeling when I thought about it, and kept on. But now I know the time is right because I feel a touch of relief when I know I can head straight home without searching for an elusive frame.

And, truth be told, it is a case of diminishing returns. There are still plenty of good photos out there, even in the strict confines of within the borders of the City of Zanesville.

Photo fans might think that the inspiration for this project was Jim Brandenburg's Chased by the Light, but they would only be partly correct, and perhaps not even that. The similarity really exists only that at times we take a picture every day for a specific project. The real inspiration was David Plowden's 50 year retrospective, Vanishing Point. The pictures therein, while simple, captured a moment and place unlike any pictures I take, and most reflected the presence of man, but not the man itself.

So I set out one day to paint a portrait of Zanesville, with the footprints of man but nary a face. I take enough face pictures anyway. I think two of the 400+ photos have people in them. If I didn't plan on doing it every day, I would let is slip and it would turn into nothing, so I planned on doing it daily. I would put my daughter to bed, and then head out into the night, in most cases, to find something to take a picture of.

So that is that. It is over. There might be a gallery show in Zanesville one of these days, but nothing concrete. And I expect I will start a new project soon, something similar with a wider scope, and certainly not every day. So keep your eyes peeled for one last post sometime soon.