SarahGlassmeyer(dot)com in perpetual beta

I took a picture of myself every day for a year.

Why?  Believe you me, I asked myself that question several times throughout the process.  I had a couple reasons why I started it.  They ranged from wanting an excuse to play with my new camera to needing a creative outlet to trying to become comfortable in front of a camera.  I didn’t have any hard and fast rules – just a self-portrait a day.

I really can’t believe I actually made it all 365 days.  It’s not that I never finish projects, but…come on! I can’t think of anything I do every day except maybe brush my teeth.  It really wasn’t that time consuming – maybe 5 minutes a day unless I was feeling very fussy.  And I got over feeling very fussy about the pictures very early on.  Hair askew?  Slightly blurry? Not that exciting?  Who cares! Take the picture and move on.

Although it didn’t take much time daily, the cumulative effect of taking a least a moment to think “what am I doing today? Let’s take a sec and record it” and having this year documented has just been amazing.  I don’t know if it’s because I am a visual learner or because of the taking a few moments to reflect upon the day every day, but I can look at every picture and pretty much remember that day.  It’s all there…good days, bad days, heart break, adventures, sickness and vacations. There’s also tons of boring pictures of me sitting in my office.

(Or standing on the couch.)

About the couch standing thing….yeah, I don’t know.  It just became a thing.

Which leads me to the major concern about this project….there’s a reason I’m a librarian and not a professional poker player.  I do not have, in any way shape or form, what you’d call a poker face.  Whether I am having a bad day or a good day, it is blindingly obvious.   I mean, everyone has bad days at work and I just had to hope that people would realize this and not make assumptions about my life or my job based on a split second in a 24 hour day.  I guess I could have always cheated and done a body part shot on those days, but that felt like cheating. It was a gamble, and hopefully one that won’t have any too many detrimental effects on my career.

As I hoped, I have become a lot more comfortable in front of the camera.  I hated that I was one of those people that would run when they saw a camera and didn’t like pictures of themselves.   I mean, here’s the thing…I don’t hate the way I look. (I’m pretty happy with it most days, actually.)   But every day I am made aware that there is a standard of beauty in my culture that I  don’t come close to and I know that others judge me on this fact.   And pictures of me were not helping this fact.  I guess it’s part of my whole honesty kick, but I got tired of hiding behind avatar.  So, part of this project was to get I lots of pictures of myself and to learn how to maximize on what I have. Mission accomplished.

In case you’re wondering, it’s head down, turned slightly to the right, and SMILE.  A genuine smile makes everyone look better.

There were some unintended consequences of this project and I learned a lot.

1. I had to login to Flickr every day. As such, I became much more involved in the Flickr community and saw a lot more of my contacts’ pictures than ever before.  Also, my contacts number tripled, although that may have had more to do with some of my other internet activities.
2. Okay, I knew the Internet weirdos would come out of the woodwork.  I mean, my size, my profession, the fact that I wear glasses, other physical attributes and (in certain lights) appear to have red hair?  All ripe for fetishists.  But…creepy dudes that tag my pics because I wear turtlenecks?  Really? Huh.
3. I learned how to block people on Flickr.
4. I did not take as many pics with my new camera as I thought.  Webcams became my friend, and later, my iPhone. It actually made for better pics, in that it was more documentary of what I do most days…sit in front of a computer.
5. I learned to take a compliment.  Although I’m fine with my looks, I was surprised at how many people would leave a comment (in a non-creepy way) to tell me that I looked pretty on a certain day.
6. It was funny to see family resemblences in myself – both to me and to family members who would contact me and say “You look just like Grandma!” Or grandpa, or Aunt X, or Nephew Y..both sides of the family, all ages and genders.  Neat.

So, I’m done.  It will be nice to not have that one thing on my plate every day, even if it wasn’t that onerous of a task.   Not tonight, but sometime I’llgo through and count up the coffee drinking pics, the ones with cameos of family, friends and co-workers, webcams vs. iPhone vs. camera pics, indoor/outdoor, etc.  I like stats.  And then I’ll probably make a chart.

So, anway, if you’re interested, take a gander.  That’s a year’s worth of me.