Keeping up with projects

[Phoenix_Jackson]

ningas-kugon / ningas kugon
"flaming cogon grass" = quickly going up in flames
- refers to the Filipino cultural trait of very enthusiastically starting things, but then quickly losing enthusiasm soon after

I think I have improved a lot, thanks to this site. I'm more confident and more critical on my shots now. The lessons I've learned from you guys are slowly becoming instinctive whenever I take a picture of something. So, thank you, kind people, for the support you've given me.

I've noticed a lot of people are on some personal projects. Be it 365, 52, or 30 veiwpoints, and the one that really caught my attention is "triangles"... with conditions! I though, "okay, so it doesn't have to be set with dates." So this, I think, would be a good step for me.

I have a habit of just blindly going to a random place and take shots there. Usually ride my bike to any distance or road forks I've never been to/heard of, or just commute (bus, train, subway) and exit at any random station without checking the place out before hand, then just walk around and find something I find interesting, and take pictures. At least, this way, I get to know this country more, while enjoying photography.

What gave me the idea of making a project is when I rode my bike to another random place one night. I've heard of this place before so I was curious. I ended up disappointed because it's one of those cities that close businesses at 10 pm, and everyone's asleep at 11 pm. Pretty much like the city I'm in right now. The only thing that caught my eye is this big sign:



Just like one of those "Welcome to..." signs. I thought if I'm going places, I might as well take shots of these welcome signs from wherever I go.

Putting some thoughts into it, I set up some rules that I think I'd be comfortable with:

• Night Shots only: There might be some signs around that aren't lit well. And I don't have an external flash. So I think this additional would make it more challenging for me.
• Very light PP: Restricted only to contrast, brightness, cropping, and white balance. I'm really tempted to go pure SOOC but I fear I might be in trouble with WB a lot.

So far that's it.

My concern is how to keep up with it. Winter is nearing and travelling/walking around would be quite a task. I considered setting up a deadline but I thought there's no point in it if I still go on with the project after the set date. Making it a routinely project like weekly or daily would be a bit expensive. Monthly would make it forgettable. So how do you guys keep up with such a commitment? I just started a blog and having this back-to-back with it might help me reinforce it. But that's all I could think of for now.

Additionally, what do you guys think of this project? Should I go for it? Should there be more rules? Any tips are very much welcome. If I pursue, this would be my first project yet.

Thank you very much for taking your time with this.

[NathanFranke]

Just do it is the best advice I can come up with. I forget the exact number*, but it's said that "seven* repetitions makes a habit." Make a point to do it everyday for a week, and you should be set.

[NgaiHill]

I'd suggest that you don't set yourself too many rules. Its your project so the rules are entirely up to you but don't make it too hard on yourself - it makes it harder to keep up with it & you'd be setting yourself up to fail.
You could always set stricter rules on your next project