365:2009 by Patrick

everything from 2009

(click, and then click “All Sizes” above the photo to see it really big.)

My son Patrick decided he would take at least one photograph each day of 2009. Patrick achieved his goal and then asked his friends to pick 365 favorite photos from the thousands he took. They did and this is the result. I think it is extremely cool.

29 thoughts on “365:2009 by Patrick

  1. Richard Robinson

    Very cool indeed. I wish I could have seen them even larger, a lot of detail is lost in the small images, but I understand it would have made a post too large to load, or at least made for a slow loader.

    This makes me want to keep my own camera closer to hand, and take it with me wherever go, instead of just on trips and vacations.

    What camera (brand, model) is he using?

    Reply
    1. george

      That’s exactly what I thought, Bill. When you first see it, it looks like abstract art. Then, when you realize the graphic is made up of 365 digital snapshots, you begin to grasph the enormity of the project. It’s way beyond my puny artisitic powers!

      Reply
    1. george

      Dave Barry was regretting not drinking more beer instead of watching last night’s tedious episode of 24. There are too many story lines and all of them are dull, Jeff.

      Reply
  2. Jeff Meyerson

    True. Even Renee “going dark” didn’t really help.

    And the sooner they lose the “Dana and the Hillbilly” storyline the better.

    Don’t they have an accent coach?

    Fire him!

    Reply
  3. Richard Robinson

    I have a Nikon 40DX, which makes darned fine pictures, but I was always fond of Cannon cameras, they are what I had back in the film days.

    Instead of watching “24”, we watched an episode of Foyle’s War and then I read some Erle Stanley Gardner.

    Reply
  4. Patti Abbott

    I love it. When we were in Amsterdam, an artist had painted the sun setting at the same spot every night for a year and had an exhibit of the canvasses. Every one was a little different. That was so cool, too.
    Watch Men of a Similar Age-it’s great.

    Reply
    1. george

      Diane has asked Patrick to have 365:2009 turned into a poster so she can have it framed and hang it on one of our walls. When you first see it, the graphic looks like Modern Art. Then you realize it’s composed of 365 digital photos. It boggles my mind!

      Reply
  5. Jeff Meyerson

    Foyle’s War is great.

    By happy coincidence we follow 24 each week with a PBS showing of an episode of the British series MI-5 (called “Spooks” over there), starring Peter Firth.

    It is so much better than 24 it is not even in the same ballpark.

    Reply
  6. Art Scott

    Your kid is smarter than most of us (I’ve known that for a long time!). Just about every year, at some point, I wish I’d done something to document my year in some fashion: photos, some sort of journal, something to keep track of trips, events, meetings with friends and the like. I only get the camera out for Bouchercons, paperback shows & some big trips. And I keep a computer log of concert attendance. Everything else pretty much vanishes into the void of inadequate memory.

    Reply
    1. george

      When Patrick showed this to Diane, she loved the whole concept of distilling a years worth in terms of an artistic experience, Art. To take a photo every takes a lot of discipline.

      Reply
  7. Jeff Meyerson

    I keep a database of concerts, too, but also of books read, restaurants eaten at, etc. So if I need to know (for whatever reason) how many times we ate out in 1976, for example (111) as opposed to 2009 (a lot more, trust me) or how many times we’ve eaten at a certain restaurant in a particular year (or in toto) I can find it in an instant.

    That’s just how my mind works anyway.

    Reply
    1. george

      You and Art are way more organized than I am, Jeff. I just look at my credit card summary to tell me where I’ve eaten and how much we’ve spent.

      Reply
    1. george

      Diane and I try to limit our restaurant trips to once a week, Rick. But sometimes we’re eating out three or four times depending on the various events we’re engaged in.

      Reply
  8. Jeff Meyerson

    Rick, that’s great, but we rarely have a day we don’t eat out at least once. I could total up the number of days we didn’t eat out at least once last year – I’m guessing some were due to illness or the weather being too awful to go out – but then… oh, what the heck.

    Of course, you realize when we’re away from home (56 days in 2009) we obviously can’t eat at home.

    That said, there were fewer than 50 days last year when we ate all our meals at home.

    And no, these days that isn’t unusual for us.

    Reply
  9. Richard Robinson

    George, I’m very interested in this entire process. Naturally, I understand the part about taking the pictures, but I’d be very grateful if you could tell me, or have Patrick email me, regarding the software he uses to edit the photographs (Adobe Photoshop?) and especially what he uses to assemble the pictures in this way. THANKS!

    Also, I AM going to try a 30 day picture-a-day. It won’t be a calendar month, because I want to get started sooner, while I have the enthusiasm. This will get me out of the house and out SEEING as well as LOOKING, which happens when I have the camera with me.

    Reply
  10. Patrick

    I have a Canon Rebel XTI (400d) – I have two lenses, a pretty standard 50mm f1.4, and the Sigma 10-20mm for wide angle. I do all my photo processing in Adobe’s Lightroom, so these were all processed throughout year (see: the whole 365). Then when everything was all done I arranged them all (by hand) using Adobe’s InDesign.

    Reply
  11. Richard Robinson

    Thanks very much, Patrick.

    Hmmm. I don’t have Adobe Lightroom, I’ll have to look into that. I do have two other programs that might accomplish the same thing, though, including Picasa. The primary thing is to take the camera with me when I go anywhere and have it handy at home. Can’t make any kind of quality photo collage without the good pics. What I have found interesting in the past is that one doesn’t always know what a “good picture” is at the time, and sometimes cropping or other editing reveal an image that at first doesn’t seem all that promising.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *