Surviving 365 Days on Film – by Ken Hindle-May

By Ken Hindle-May

So, you’ve decided 2018 is the year you’ll attempt a Project 365 exclusively on film.  The first couple of days were no problem, with the holidays providing plenty of time and opportunity to get out there and shoot.  But now you’re back at work and, holy crap, are there really only seven hours of proper daylight this time of year?  Don’t despair.  As film shooters, old digital P365 standbys like heavy Photoshop work and macro shots of household objects aren’t so easy for us.  But by thinking ahead, getting organised and not riding your luck too hard, you too can successfully document an entire year of your life on film, one day at a time.  I know because I did it in 2015 and it was a transformational experience.  I came into the year as someone with a couple of film cameras that I put a roll through every now and then.  I ended it with a much deeper understanding of film and exposure, of composition and subject, and as for my camera collection…let’s not get into that.  My wife might read this one day.

Cloud-based note taking apps are a great way to keep track of your activities.
Cloud-based note taking apps are a great way to keep track of your activities.

Probably the greatest fear you will have is ending up with a blank space, a gap in the project where, for one reason or another, you didn’t get a shot for that day.  I managed to avoid it, but on some days just barely and it was often only luck that saved me.  Photographers make their own luck, I learned, and here’s how you can make yours:

Track Everything!

If you don’t do this from the beginning, assembling and publishing the project is going to be a complete nightmare.  Aim to put some sort of system in place on Day 1.  Week 1 is probably okay, but no longer than that.  I used Google Keep to track what subject, camera and lens (if applicable) I’d shot each day, also making a note of when I finished each roll of film.  I used a cloud-based app because I didn’t want to risk losing the entire thing if something happened to my phone.  If I were doing it again, I’d be tempted to use Shoot Film Co.’s charming and useful PhotoMemo books instead, or maybe a dedicated app like Exif Notes.

Tracking my activity made collating my scans and uploading them to Flickr a great deal easier. I know this because halfway through the year my wife had a baby and for about eight weeks after that my admin just went to pieces. The baby-related activities and steady stream of visitors kept me well-supplied with things to shoot, but I had to retrospectively figure out what I’d shot, when.  That involved a painstaking search of calendars, email, work diaries and peering at negatives for frame numbers.  I don’t recommend it!

Warning - Babies may seriously damage your admin
Warning – Babies can seriously damage your project admin.

 

In the beginning, you'll be able to capture all those things you've noticed, but never gotten around to shooting.
In the beginning, you’ll be able to capture all those things you’ve noticed, but never gotten around to shooting.
A list of potential shots can be a real lifesaver.
A list of potential shots can be a real lifesaver.

Collect Ideas

In the beginning, you probably won’t have any difficulty finding ways to get your shot for the day.  There might be quite a few neat details near your house, where you work, on your commute or your in your hobbies that you’ll want to capture.

Sooner or later, though, you’re going to exhaust that easy supply and that means hunting around for inspiration.  The thing to remember here is that no matter how many shots you take, you can only ever use one per day.  If you’ve already taken a shot that day and see something else, you might want to save it for another day.  Alternatively, if it’s a transient kind of scene you could shoot it and recreate the earlier shot on a different day.  Once again, I used Google Keep to record any shots I wanted to come back to later.  I didn’t come back and re-shoot many scenes at all, but that’s because generally I don’t like the results when I do that.  Your mileage may vary.

I also searched Google, Flickr and Instagram for images of interesting subjects near where I lived, or in places I was visiting, and added them to the list.  Ultimately, what you’re doing is preparing a ‘backup’ for the days when you aren’t really feeling it, or have limited time available.  You will have these days and being able to just pick a subject from the list and shoot it is a godsend.

It’s also easy to forget that a Project 365 can be autobiographical as well as artistic.  We tend to overlook it, but there’s a wealth of photogenicity in the everyday tasks we take for granted.  I took shots while in traffic jams, going to the supermarket, gardening, cooking and putting petrol in the car.  Some of them came out surprisingly well, and tell a kind of mini story of their own.

Whether by bus...
Whether by bus…
...or by car, your commute can provide ample opportunity for taking pictures.
…or by car, your commute can provide ample opportunity for taking pictures.
You can make a decent photo out of even the most humdrum tasks.
You can make a decent photo out of the most humdrum tasks.

 

The low winter sun can really restrict your shooting opportunities.
The low winter sun can really restrict your shooting opportunities.
Essential information. Except that bit about Nautical Twilight.
Essential information. Except that bit about Nautical Twilight.

Chase the Light

Where I am in the world, the sun is currently rising after 8am and setting at 4pm.  If you work in something like a nine-to-five job, then five days out of seven you won’t have much daylight to work with at all.  The good news is the days are getting longer, but you’ll run into this problem again towards the end of the year so it’s worth thinking about how you’ll handle it.  If you’re comfortable with flash photography and have a good social life then that will provide a lot of photo opportunities.  I started the year with a pregnant wife and ended it with a baby and at no point in between did I have a recognisable social life.

Instead, I had to work with available light most of the time.  By far the most useful tool I found was an app called Blue Hour.  This not only told me when sunrise and sunset were for my location, but also when the Golden and Blue Hours were.  The soft, warm light of Golden Hour can really bring a scene to life and in the winter months, you might be travelling to work during it.  Blue Hour, the hour before sunrise and after sunset, doesn’t seem to get as much love as Golden Hour but the blue cast and cool tones it gives can be just as evocative.  There’s not a lot of light around in Blue Hour though, so most of my weekday shooting was done on my way to work or in my lunch break.  I was lucky enough to work in the centres of two major cities during my Project 365, which meant an interesting shot was usually just a walk away.

This approach worked quite well at the time, but learning how to do my own development opened up a lot of possibilities.  I think if I were repeating the project, I would make full use of push processing to expand the range of conditions available to me.

The Blue Hour - mood and atmosphere come as standard.
The Blue Hour – mood and atmosphere come as standard.
Oddball cameras like the Minolta Riva Panorama help keep things fresh.
Oddball cameras like the Minolta Riva Panorama can provide much-needed variety.

Experiment

I started my Project fully expecting my Canon A-1 and Lomo LC-A to be my two workhorses for the year.  Though I put several rolls through each, I hadn’t anticipated just how much my camera collection would balloon.  The more I learned about film, the more cool cameras I heard about and the more I wanted to try them.  This was good in that it kept things fresh, kept me wanting to get out there and see what these things could do.

I also tried out different films.  For cost reasons, I shot a lot of Agfa Vista Plus (aka Poundland film) and Fuji Superia during the year, but it was really nice to mix it up with other emulsions.

Experimenting with redscale...
Redscale film provides a distinctive and variable look that can be fun to play around with.
With saturation and contrast in spades, cross processing can make anything look interesting.
With saturation and contrast in spades, cross processing can make anything look interesting.

I experimented with redscale at different ASAs, did a bit of cross processing, shot Ektar when the light allowed, compared different B+W films, pushed Tri-X and HP5+.  I learned a lot and anything that ignites the urge to take photos is to be embraced.  But at the same time, it’s a good idea to…

Know Your Tools

The single biggest threat to you completing a continuous project of 365 shots is a technical failure of some sort.  Your camera, your film and your developing process are all capable of letting you down and blowing a big hole in your project.  Buying a second hand camera, whether from eBay or a reputable camera shop, and immediately using it is a risk.

If I'd known this AF compact better, I might have realised the snow would interfere with focus.
If I’d been more familiar with this AF compact, I might have realised the falling snow would interfere with focus.

I took the precaution of having my Canon A-1 serviced before starting the project and I already knew my Lomo to be bomb-proof (perhaps literally).  By the time March rolled around, though, I’d let my guard down and was shooting whatever new camera had just arrived in the post.  I was luck and only experienced two camera failures during the year, both partial.  A Yashica T2 jammed while rewinding and I lost several frames opening the back to sort it out.  On that occasion, I was only saved by my enthusiasm: I was shooting a new lens on an SLR at the time, so the days I’d lost on one camera were captured on the other.  Doubling up like that, pairing a new camera with a known quantity, is actually a really good safety measure and I’d thoroughly recommend it.  I wasn’t so lucky when my Ricoh FF-90 developed a focusing fault and so I ended up with several ‘soft focus’ days in the final project.

This roll came back so badly underdeveloped the negs were practically blank.
This roll came back so badly underdeveloped the negs were practically blank.

The most heart-stopping moment of the year wasn’t caused by a camera, but by some negatives.  Specifically, by a 36 exposure roll that came back from the lab looking completely blank.  Incredibly, my scanner managed to pull decent images from it, but they were very dark and dusty.  Suddenly,the £1 I’d saved by using the supermarket instead of my local camera shop didn’t look like such a bargain.

Bottom line – use a lab you trust, or fresh developer if you’re doing it at home (or Rodinal, which never goes off).  It’s just not worth the risk.  I’d extend that to film, too; if you’re going to shoot something very expired and possibly not well stored, take a second camera with something fresh in it.

You Miss 100% of the Shots You Don’t Take

Perhaps contrary to what I said earlier about rationing your shots, if you decide to leave a shot for later don’t be surprised if it’s not there when you get back.  I was caught out by this a few times.  I passed a garden bursting with incredible flowers, but they’d been deadheaded by the time I came back.  I missed the chance to shoot a creepy derelict building because it got pulled down before I got around to it.  On both occasions, I didn’t take the shot because I was hurrying to work.  What’s more important, making an awesome Project 365, or being on time for work?

Days later, this building was pulled down. It's easy to miss your chance.
Days later, this building was pulled down. It’s easy to miss your chance.
Buildings going up or coming down present a good opportunity to capture a shot that can never be replicated.
Buildings going up or coming down present a good opportunity to capture a shot that can never be replicated.

Finally, the golden rule of all golden rules has to be always, ALWAYS have a camera with you.  Sounds obvious, but when you’ll really kick yourself when you spy a particularly photogenic cat edgy street scene and realise you’ve left your current shooter in your other trousers.  For that reason, if you are doubling up on cameras it’s a good idea to make one of them a small compact that will easily fit in a jacket pocket.  That way you’ve always got an option if you’re going somewhere but don’t want to take a bag.

Always have a camera with you, because you never know when you might run into...whatever's going on here.
Always have a camera with you, because you never know when you might run into…whatever’s happening here.

So there you have it, the tips and tricks that helped me get through 365 consecutive days of film photography.  Hopefully it’ll help people identify a few pitfalls without blundering into them, like I did.  A Project 365 is a big commitment and one that, at times, will feel like a chore but it’s such a worthwhile undertaking.  Shooting every day, instead of just when you feel like it, will force you to work much harder to find inspiration in environments you’ve walked through a hundred times before.  Perhaps most valuable of all, my Project 365 saw me start to develop my own distinctive ‘voice’ as a photographer, where I’d been a bit of a generalist before.

Small, overlooked details in familiar environments have b
Small, overlooked details in familiar environments have become a theme in my photography.

Now you may be reading this having not started a Project 365 today, on the 1st of January, or maybe you have found this post at a later date in the year, but don’t worry.  There’s no real reason why you have to do the project over a single calendar year.  You could just as easily do it February to February and it will be every bit as valid and enriching.  One idea I particularly like is to start it on your birthday, that way the final project is a great record of a particular year of your life.  In fact, I’m thinking of doing it when I turn 40 in a few years time.  All on film, of course.

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Comments

Chris on Surviving 365 Days on Film – by Ken Hindle-May

Comment posted: 26/04/2023

I literally lived near where that Forever graffiti is around the time of this article being published and never saw it once. Nice photo!
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Dan on Surviving 365 Days on Film – by Ken Hindle-May

Comment posted: 03/01/2018

Great article Ken - nicely written and some nice photos. Thanks for sharing.
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Simon Burgess on Surviving 365 Days on Film – by Ken Hindle-May

Comment posted: 01/01/2018

Enjoyed the article...bailed out in April last time and back into analogue after many years. I think you've given me the kick I needed to give it a go but analogue only. Thanks Ken !
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Ken Hindle-May replied:

Comment posted: 01/01/2018

It's a great way to get back on the horse (or on the horse in earnest, in my case). Just a little tricky to catch the light this time of year!

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Dave Wolanski on Surviving 365 Days on Film – by Ken Hindle-May

Comment posted: 01/01/2018

Your timing is perfect! I’m planning to start a 365 today. I’m thinking I want to do it as only one frame each day, to make it even harder on myself! Your tips are awesome. I was thinking about the notes issue, but hadn’t figured it out yet.
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Ken Hindle-May replied:

Comment posted: 01/01/2018

Glad I could help! I gave some thought to using date backs to try and help keep everything straight, but wasn't sure it would suit my style. I think you could make a theme of it though, especially if you use the same camera all year. That might be asking a lot of some of these old, all-electronic cameras, though!

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jeremy north on Surviving 365 Days on Film – by Ken Hindle-May

Comment posted: 01/01/2018

Thank you Ken for an interesting and entertaining read. Thought provoking too.

I tried a 365 once but as you pointed out, it is doomed to fail without proper commitment and preparation. Of course I bailed out for those reasons.

I like the pictures you've posted which ably demonstrate the fun that can be had. I prefer the theme of a journal rather than trying to make every picture a work of art. Even the mistakes have a story to tell.
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Ken Hindle-May replied:

Comment posted: 01/01/2018

Thank you. I think I was approaching most of the shots from an artistic, or at least documentary standpoint, but I was happy with the results when I did dip into a more diaristic area. I'd probably try and include more of that if I did another P365 - Jamie Livingston's Polaroid a Day project shows how interesting the everyday can be. The hard thing is spotting things that seem humdrum to you, but others might find interesting!

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Garr8 on Surviving 365 Days on Film – by Ken Hindle-May

Comment posted: 01/01/2018

Sweet article, for beginners and those stuck for ideas with their photography. Happy New Year, to you.
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Terry B on Surviving 365 Days on Film – by Ken Hindle-May

Comment posted: 01/01/2018

Ken, the shot you were most critical of, the snow scene, is the one I like the most. The "dream-like" look lends itself well to this scene.
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Ken Hindle-May replied:

Comment posted: 01/01/2018

Thanks, Terry. I was trying to capture the woman in red on the right of frame, as I thought she'd really stand out against the snow. At least it failed in an interesting way!

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