Photo credit: balladist

Let’s talk about your blog. As much as possible, you write something in it every day: that déjà vu in the train, your lunch, your overly cheerful boss, your child’s questions, your favorite part of the day, anything at all.

 One journal entry a day, 7 entries in a week, 30 in a month, 365 in a year.

Now imagine doing that—chronicling your life—with photos. At the end of the year, you will quite literally see your whole life flash before your eyes. Like how they say near-death experiences cause the same thing. This time, you force it upon yourself.

Taylor McKnight started a photo endeavor called Project 365. On January 1, 2004 he took the first photo. 365 days after and 365 more photos later, the project served as a great way to remember the passing year, and on a more profound sense, helped him appreciate and understand the important things in his life. Apart from that, he became a better photographer.

Are you up for the challenge? Do you wish to look back to see actual scenes of olden days, recall the feelings and thoughts, see whom you met and what you learned? If nostalgia is your cup of tea, this project is a great way to save you from forgetting. Here are tips to get you started with Project 365:

Bring your camera everywhere

You should always be ready to capture anything as the day unfolds hour after hour. Make it a habit to pitch your camera in your everyday bag. Take it to the office, school, grocery store, restaurant, birthday party, movie house, meeting and dinner. Keep this mantra in your head: there are photo-ops everywhere. And you don’t have to lug those bulky DSLRs; compact point-and-shoots and camera phones are good enough.

Allow for easy posting

Get a great place to post your daily photos. Blogger and WordPress both have built-in photo posting. One entry, one photo. You can also post through Flickr. One week worth of photos can be uploaded in about 2 minutes.

Don’t be afraid to experiment

Be creative. Today, take a photo of someone you meet. Tomorrow, perhaps get a snapshot of the restaurant you just discovered. Vary your themes. Take a photo of the adorable baby who made you smile. Take a photo of the yoga class you recently enrolled in. And don’t forget to take a self-portrait so you can see how you’ve changed.

Never give up

You may get tired of taking and posting photos every single day. It may be something nasty that happened at work or at home that would make you think of stopping halfway through. But hear this: don’t stop. Think of your goals. Achieving them is always worth the effort. Don’t think that there’s nothing left to take a photo of. There are always more things to photograph. Get out of the house. Take a short walk. Take a photo of anything. Just don’t stop.

Hang it on your wall

If you want to savor each year in your living room or right out of bed without having to turn on your computer, have your 365 photos resized to fit in a medium or large collage (we can provide this service at no charge). Get it printed as a canvas print. You now have a year in your life immortalized!

From its minimalist layout to its user-friendly functions, Flickr offers heaps of features that attracted hobbyist and professional photographers alike. Easily, it grew into a place where people can comfortably share their work, interact and learn.

• Use the web-based upload form right in the Flickr website. Ideal when you only post one or two photos at a time.
• Upload photos straight from your desktop with the Flickr Uploadr 3.0. You can download the uploader for Windows (Vista/XP) or the uploader for Mac OS X.
• When you’re on a vacation and there’s no computer within your reach, you can use your mobile phone to send photos to your account.
• Email your photos to your photostream using an especially configured email address.

1. Go to his or her photostream page, say AusPhotographer’s.
2. Click Profile in the menu under AusPhotographer’s Photostream.
3. On the upper right hand part of the Profile screen, click Add AusPhotographer as a contact.
4. On the confirmation screen, you’ll be asked to add AusPhotographer as either friend or family. If the photographer is neither, leave the tick boxes unchecked.
5. Finally, click Add.

Allison recently won the "Wedding" photo category in the first round of our Hot Shot or Not competition. You can see all winners here.

In this post - Allison talks about her winning image:

I always wanted a dramatic poses for my wedding photo’s and just as that picture
was about to be taken the wind came up and my dress just billowed out, and we
knew that that photo would be brilliant!
 

Allison’s tip for others getting wedding photographs is:

I did a lot of research on poses and picked out the ones I wanted for my wedding
photos and I made sure that those were taken.  I would rather a few fantastic
photographs than a lot of ordinary.

Stay tuned for more feature photographer posts from our July Round of Hot Shot Photographers/

544 images. 5000 votes. 1 very tight contest.

We are proud to announce the winners of the first round of Hot Shot or Not. Each of the winners received the highest average vote in their category.

In no particular order - our 5 Hot Shots for June are:

Wedding Category:

Allison M. for "Windswept"

Landscape Category:

Sally M. for "Resting ontop of the Alps"

Portrait Category:

Sally M. for "After a day’s surf"

Flower Category:

Jenny T for "Purple Hyacinth"

Other Category:

Peta C. for "Action at Avalon Airshow"

Each winner receives their image as a 12 x 18 canvas print.

Many of the winners have offered to share the stories, techniques and tips behind their images on this blog. So keep checking back to find out their photographic secrets

Do you have what it takes to be our next Hot Shot?

We will be deleting the winning images from the server. So make sure you vote, or upload your own images!

We are proud to announce the launch of Hot Shot or Not - our ongoing photographic competition.

The idea behind "Hot Shot or not" is simple. You can:

1) Rate other photographers images and provide feedback

2) Upload your own images anonymously and get both ratings and comments

3) Win great prizes. The monthly winner in each category gets their winning images printed as a stunning 12 x 18 inch canvas prints.

We’ve created Hot Shot or Not to be an easy way for keen photographers to get honest feedback on their work.

The competition will run monthly - so make sure you see whether you are Australia’s next Hot Shot!