Originally posted on: nialldavid.wordpress.com/
This is me. This is me on top of a melting piece of the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier at the mouth of the Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon in Iceland. It’s probably one of the most incredible, jaw-dropping places I have ever been in my entire life. On a whirlwind trip around Iceland a few summer’s ago, I only got to spend only a few hours here, but it was an experience I will never forget. Right before I headed back to the car, I hopped up on what for all I knew was a piece of compressed glacial ice 5000 years my elder on it’s way to the ocean never to be seen again, and I snapped this image.
To this day, it still stands as my favorite self-portrait. I reached up and filled the frame with a photograph that tells the entire story of my Iceland trip in one image. In fact, I think it tells the entire story of my spirit in one image. I chose it months ago to serve as one of the last days of this blog, to celebrate finishing a year of daily images by putting myself out there.
All of the images on this blog mean something to me, and all of them represent pieces of me. Some are of loved ones. Some are from my travels. Some are of incredible rock shows I was center stage for. Some are completely random. And some are part of experimental work I never knew would even see the light of day, let along become part of what I now consider integral to my photographic style.
It has been an incredible year for me, and for my photography. I made 1000’s of photographs each month (sometimes 1000’s in a single day), started the foundation of a photo business, built a new website from the ground up, took educational classes (in person and online) with some of the most well-known experts today in photography, and all in all feel I have expanded my technical knowledge of this art more in this one year, than ever in all my born days.
As I put the finishing touches on the 365 project, I reflect on an amazing year of life behind the lens. Even though I’ve been shooting since I could hold a toy camera, I really feel like this past year was the year of getting super serious. It was the year of hours a day, every day, of focusing on getting better at the craft. I finally started making more images of people while continuing to learn more about landscapes, music photography, abstracts and long exposures at night – all of which have become the genres I focus my work on.
Today closes the year-long journey on this blog. I already decided a while back that I wouldn’t be continuing on past day 365 into another year. It’s seems simple, but posting one image a day is actually a lot of work and takes a decent time commitment I’m not sure I can afford right now. At this point I would like to take extra time to focus on shooting more, learning different techniques, studying lighting both natural and in studio, better methods of digital post processing, and other areas of photography critical to my growth as a photographer. I hope to build one of these projects again some year…
For now, you can keep up to date with my work and the occasional blog post on my website: https://nialldavid.com,
on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/nialldavidphotography,
and on Twitter @nialldavid
Thanks so much for tuning in.
365/365