Traditions and rituals are nothing without repetition. As in years before, a first task is a resetting of the daily photo project in flickr. This is something I have been at since 2008 (if you are doing the math, like an array, remember the first year is 0).
I cite myself for the history, here from the start of my second round
Getting Myself Organized: The 2021 Archive
The first part of the rollover is finishing up last year’s collection. At 329 out of 365 possible that was my lowest completion record, just a nudge above 90%. I lapsed often, leading to sometimes uploading photos taken over 3 or 4 weeks. I did not fill any gaps, all he ones posted where taken that day, just the uploading was late.
I could list some excuses, but I will just cite Pandemic, The (2021). Today I also did what I have done since 2017, with a lift from John Johnston’s amazing command line ffmpeg script that is able to download all the images from my album, resize them to be the same size, and put together into a video at 5 second intervals.
His naming reminds me that in an earlier era (here is 2011) I relied on a web site called Pummelvision which did and hosted this, but as it’s gone, I am left with blank spots in my blog where embeds once lived. Lesson #278 on being wary of relying long term on “easy/free” web tools. Most will bite the web dust.
I modified John’s slightly (see the gist of it) and was able in a few minutes of command line flurry
I ended up with an mp4 video. The script generates it in reverse (oldest first), so I take it into iMovie, reverse the sequence, add some titles and music to yield
It’s rather mesmerizing a.k.a insightful to see a year fly by like this.
Getting Myself Organized: The 2022 Album
I normally would have waited until tonight, but I create a new flickr album for my 2022 photos (the one sitting there is just a placeholder), all my new photos will go here, all named 2022/365/X where X is the day number of the year.
What is that number? I rely on a little OSX app I cannot even find anymore that in calendar view shows the day number for any day/month/year
I also slide the new album into my flickr collection of albums for this project. I smile at seeing this interface as it still has the essence of the visual design of Ye Olde Flickr.
And I also feel like I am wandering a secret chamber of the Flickr mansion that no one knows about. What is inside that wardrobe? Hmmmmm.
Getting the Flickr Group Organized
Also on a yearly basis I do a bit of turnover on the flickr group D’Arcy and I started in 2008. The URL indicates that we started it in a leap year, maybe not even thinking it would go farther.
This means swapping out the icon and header image which I just rummage around the group photo pool to find them… with 319,000 photos there, it should not take long to find something. I update some of the text description, noting that there are now over 1800 people who joined his group but rarely have any interaction (I post a yearly message, here is the 2022 version).
I did spot a message a few weeks ago where someone felt like people in the group were not rally doping daily photos, and I can see that in the pool where people plop in many images of the same location or place. I really do not want to be the group cop, and given than most folks never really look at the stream, I am tempted to let it go. I do have the “power” to toss people out, but I have always hung on to a rule of no rules.
The Daily Thing
After all this time, I still find a great benefit it dedicating some time per day to prying away from the Work Things and just making sure I do at least one creative thing a day with the camera. I’m revved up for another year of daily photos, and whether it sounds like chore or joy to you, that’s for you to figure out.
If you do want to be part of the action, you can join our group or the other 99 thousand other ones like it. And whether you do it in flickr or instagram or your own blog (hi D’Arcy) it’s the act that counts, not the how or where.
Tonight is my first of the 365 for 2022. See you at the end of this loop.
Feature Image: A composite of my first and last daily photos of 2021 2021/365/1 Red Book Project flickr photo by cogdogblog shared into the public domain using Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0) and 2021/365/365 Leave the Lights on for 2022 flickr photo by cogdogblog shared into the public domain using Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0)