[365]365

[365]365, a photo by jason laucker on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
here it is.

i know it's time to spill my mind, but before i begin i just want to tell you a bit about this photo.

i woke up at 5am this morning. it was dark and cold and groggy but i managed to drag myself up despite how hard it was. my parents and i had already planned this a couple days back when we visited the same beach. we wanted to catch the sunrise, actually. my dad told me that that location was the best for catching sunrises, since there was nothing in the way, and it was facing in the right direction. we were hoping to see all these beautiful colours and watch the sun come out from behind the water. we wanted something magnificent and beautiful and spectacular and that's what i wanted to capture as well. so we left home and we drove a while down to this beach, and much to my surprise there were already so many people out and about the streets. there was only one person at the beach when we arrived. but by the time we walked to it he/she disappeared so we were left alone in the dark (and dim light) on the beach. we set up our stuff and got ready to take some photographs.

but we knew right away that this beautiful, breathtaking scene we planned on getting wasn't going to happen.

the wind was picking up so quickly, and it was freezing cold. i could even walk properly because the wind was so strong. i could tell the 'the end' sign i cut out earlier wasn't going to show, and might even be blown away or break in the violent wind. then we looked up. there were clouds everywhere. and it looked like it was going to rain. the most important part of the sky was covered by clouds and there was little to no chance of seeing any actual colour.

of course i was devestated! what was going to happen now? everything i planned was going down the drain and all my backup plans became more and more un-doable. it was a nightmare.

but then i realized. it doesn't have to be. i had been putting way too much pressure on myself for the last day. yes, it's the last day and you want to end it with a bang, it's true. but i almost lost myself by wanting to make such a big bang that when the circumstances weren't right for the photo it turned into a nightmare. i realized that this was just like any other day i had before this. the day i bought props but didn't end up using them. the time i went outside and got covered by unexpected snow or rain. every single time i walked out that door without having any previous ideas in mind and just creating something that came from within. i had actually done that most days of my 365 without realizing. i could do it. and i needed to do that.

so i did.

there is just something so beautiful about the unplanned and unexpected. i've learned that through my 365. no matter how much you want everything to be the opposite - planned and laid out and thought out - it will never happen. that's just life and how life goes. i can say that for almost all my photos ive taken in the past year, not many photos have been completely planned and thought out. i remember in some instances where i tried to do so, and it just turned into a complete mess. or there was always some kind of factor that forced you to move on and change it up no matter how much you didnt want to.

it didnt only happen in my photographs. my project really outlined my life in the past year as well. what i experienced through this project was nothing like i've ever felt before in my entire life. i know it was change for sure. change in many different ways and forms. i used to be really uptight about having to know everything and what was going to happen next and what was going to happen after that. you could say i was a lucky kid. growing up i didnt have many falls or bumps. i experienced joy and contentment more than anything. so i used to be scared of the future and scared of failure when i didnt know what was coming my way. scared of anything dark and gloomy and depressing and angry... scared of anything bad. throughout my project i came to meet a lot of the bad in life. the first few times were definitely hard, but as it went on i acknowledged it. i accepted it. later i even embraced it. i failed to do a lot of things this past year. i fell and bruised and broke and cracked and got destroyed many many times. but this is what we need to grow. you see, there is no life without bad. without bad, we wouldn't feel the good.

i guess you can see it in some photos my encounters with 'the bad'. i used to not want to upload because my photo was 'bad', or i didnt have the best day ever. but eventually at many points i stopped myself. this project was about documenting my life as well, and i wanted to keep it as real as possible. i used to have a lot of aesthetically pleasing photos that may have been so intriguing and beautiful and breathtaking in many, many ways. i always just thought that having a nice photo was the only thing that mattered. i was completely wrong. when i look back at some of those photos, i can't help but feel like im looking at something so flat, so shallow and unemotional. i just wanted to stop it. eventually i told myself it was okay to have grain, to have noise, to underexpose or overexpose. shoot in manual focus, or auto focus! don't even bother to edit this, or edit the heck out of this. i stopped caring because this all matters so little in the long run. i wanted to make photographs that triggered something in me. that made me see and made me feel alive. i dont care if it made me smile or laugh or cry or burn in flames inside - i just wanted to feel something. i wanted to remember the things that happened that day and what kind of things i thought of and felt. i wanted to keep that essence forever in a photograph. the best compliments were no longer "wow, this photo is so nice" "the colours are beautiful" or "the focus is great" - they were things like "this photo makes me feel", or "this photo just seems so real" or even silent comments because the viewer had just been staring at the photo, trying to figure out what exactly it was making them feel or think.

i dont know what life is sometimes. it's unfair, but it's fair.

once upon a time i thought that i would always keep falling and bruising and feeling bad about what i did and who i was. my posture wasn't the best. i had a lot of acne and a scrawny body. i never really had a lot of self esteem. i was bad at sports, stupid in math, scientifically illiterate, and not too fancy with english. i got upset when things didnt work out perfectly. i was scared of what people would think about my photography. i didnt think anyone would really support my photography and cheer me on. i didnt know how to approach and talk to people, and i got really awkward around people. i worried that people wouldnt like me and i was destroyed when i realized that was actually the case. these are just a few things i used to feel like and i didnt even know exactly why i was like this but i just told myself this was me and id always just be like this. i thought i would always be stuck in this dark, dark hole with no hope of being something much better and fulfilling my potential as a human being. a period of losing friends, doing badly in school and sports and music, ending relationships, being humiliated, and not reaching a lot my goals and dreams certainly did not help.

but when you keep swimming despite anything that's been thrown at you, that's when the beautiful things happen. thats when the light shines through and you see all these things you've never seen before in your life. you learn so many things you would have never learned if you'd just given up in the first place. you learn that it's okay to fall down sometimes, that it's okay to feel bad sometimes, and that every single person out there, good or bad, is battling something too. it's true. you learn to take risks, step out of your comfort circle and not be afraid of what you're falling into.

slowly but surely i tasted so much sweetness in life and experienced what made me feel happy, thankful, comfortable, confident, and more hopeful as a person. i came across people who were fine with who i was as a person. people who always helped me get through anything and everything no matter what happened. i met people who inspired me and had the ability to just walk in and pick me up and change my life for the better. i even feel like i re-met my family and bonded even more than we would have before.

sometimes i wonder if it was really this project that brought so much into my life or if it was just a part of growing up. maybe it was a mixture of both. whatever it was im surely glad i made the decision to start this project, and that i really did document my life for the past 365 days so closely.

even as i was choosing today's 365, i applied the valuable lesson of taking risks that i'd learned from this project. i had a 'safe' shot and then this one - the risky one. i wasnt sure how you guys would react to it, i wondered if it was going to be a disappointment. i wondered if it was a 'bad' shot or if it wasn't the right way to end this project. it was just so risky... so i went with it. this is the kind of attitude i've adopted so often throghout the project. and today, i used this method to end my project. it might not be the biggest bang, but it's been a profound one for me.

another thing i learned was that i had to have purpose. it showed this morning when i woke up at 5. that's something i would never even think of doing, but i got up and i did it because i wanted to get this 365 shot so badly. to me, photography needs to be steered in a direction, it really does. throughout my project i learned that with purpose, a photograph or a series of photographs can turn out so much more different than you'd expect.

and to you, if you've read everything up to here. i cant even begin to say how much every single one of you mean to me. like i said i never thought anyone would be so supportive of my work and what i do. sometimes it still shocks me a lot and i dont know what to say. for every single favourite, comment, purchased or exchanged print, or even just a view - a peek - into my life for the past year, i thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. if it wasn't for you, then i probably would not have this photo today, and be sitting here today, typing all these thoughts and experiences out and spilling my mind.

it's been a crazy year it really has. and im done. i did it. every single day i touched my camera and tried to make something meaningful even though it might not have always worked. i've been asked many times what i'd be up to now that my projects done. well i'll still be around for sure. i dont even know what's going to come next but that's the beautiful mystery of life - just falling into something you don't even know. i just want to take a break and take some time for myself, but one thing has been set in stone - i will never, ever stop taking photographs.

ps - i'd guess it'd be fair to tell you guys that nicole wu finished her 365 as well today. i dont even know how to describe her, that's how good she is, so if you've got some time it would mean so much to me if you checked out her stream and her project!