I’m a big fan of projects that capture change over time — siblings that take a picture every year for decades; seeds becoming plants; stars moving across the sky. Time expansion is pretty cool too; I can waste a lot of time (ha) watching the Slo Mo Guys. This year I decided on a New Year whim to try a similar project myself — not a particularly original one, but fun nevertheless. Each day in 2024 I’m trying to take a single picture or short video, typically but not always a closeup/macro view, that loosely represents something notable about the day. No long descriptions, just a word or two to go along with the shot. Follow my progress on Instagram if you’re so inclined!
“Loosely represents something notable” is the trick — I’m trying for shots that: (1) can stand on their own; (2) aren’t obviously events or people; but (3) have a little hook to help me remember where and why I took them. Hopefully scrolling through the set next January first will be a fun way to remember the sweep of the year.
Just over a twelfth of the way through the process, I thought I’d share a sneak peek. Click through the image to see an interactive version!
Of course I had to find a way to write some code here too. I really wanted to embed the thumbnails in a traditional calendar — I’m sure there must be a pre-built story for this somewhere, but I was unsuccessful in my quest. The superpower of the modern age comes through again — a bit of time with the Instagram API and I was good to go. 95% of the code is just reuse from other projects, which is how I know I’m still doing it right! I won’t spend time on it here, but if you want to steal anything please feel free — it’s all open-licensed and on GitHub. Let me know if I can help.
January takeaways:
- Suz was here!
- It was COLD in Bellevue.
- Connor is old.
- Did the WA-to-CA drive myself.
- Made it to Ventura!