A photo a day

"The best camera is the one you have with you" - Chase Jarvis

Chase Jarvis is a pretty awesome pro photographer, don't believe me check out this video.

See what I mean?!?! He does some awesome and amazing stuff all in the name of photography, even if you aren't into photography I recommend subscribing to his YouTube Channel, it's very entertaining.

Now onto business, I picked that quote from Chase Jarvis for a reason, for a long time I've been interested in photography but I always wanted a DSLR, or better stated I always thought I needed one to be a great photographer. It's true DSLRs give you an edge in creating great photos, even the most basic of DSLRs allow you most if not full control of how your photos are composed, white balance, shutter speed, aperture width and so on, however DSLRs aren't always the best to take pictures, after all they are big, sometimes heavy, and cumbersome. All those lenses to carry around plus a tripod, maybe a few flashes or speed lights.  Imagine lugging around all this equipment to your next Thanksgiving dinner with the family, or on a trip to the amusement park, it's pretty laughable just thinking about it. With the rise of Smartphones and subsequently the development of better phone cameras, Mr. Jarvis' statement is becoming more true each day, you can get so much from just even your simplest of smartphones and with a device like the LG G2 or HTC One or in my case the Samsung Galaxy line you are armed with a camera that is on par with the average persons $300 Sony Cybershot or some other point and shoot.  Throw in the ability to add on apps and filters with apps such as, VSCO cam, Instagram, Pixelr, and many more you are shooting at the level of a DSLR with a SMARTPHONE! So, in my quest to become a better photographer I am embarking on the year long photo a day challenge, I plan to post my pictures in a photo blog, with some of the better ones being posted here as well, at the moment I'm torn between two photoblogging sites 365project.org or Flickr, they both have their advantages. Flickr being established for a very long time has longevity and therefore a multitude of users which will be a great help for crowd sourcing ideas and also getting helpful critiques.  365 on the other hand has an awesome way of sorting your pictures into a well built calendar they've also got a nice commenting section and a fair amount of users as well.  Thinking about it I may just use both services and reap the benefits of each while learning from the flaws of both, it can't hurt and the only thing I will be losing is a few extra minutes uploading to both sites.  And so my journey begins I figure what better time than now to start with the new year approaching it's a perfect time.

In keeping with the theme of this post, I will be using every camera that I own whenever possible, however I will try to focus on my DSLR as much as possible since I intend to use this project to make me better at photography.  I also want to use this project to get me taking pictures and just keeping a camera with me at all times, shouldn't be too hard with smartphones on hand these days.

And so armed with these guys, I'm on my way to picture heaven.  Anyone want to join me, leave a comment, it would be fun to do this with others and talk about our experiences along the way.