I took a picture every day for 28 days of something I love and this is what I learned.

Early one morning in late January, I woke up with this idea to create a Photo Challenge for the whole month of February. For this challenge I would take a pictures every single day of something I love. I had such an eager feeling that this photo challenge was something that I needed to do and that I needed to share and ask others to join me. Now, I just have to say, I’ve never done anything like this before and this was something so out of the ordinary for me to do, but like I said, I felt very inspired to do so. So that morning I sat down at my computer, created this graphic and posted it on The Wicker House’s Instagram Page with a link to my Wicker House Photography Instagram page.

And you know what. Not one person joined me. Not one. All month long, not a single person. It’s a little embarrassing to put yourself out there like this. But whatever, I continued on with the challenge all by myself anyway. I posted a pictures every single day of something I love on my Photography Instagram page, as well as in my The Wicker House stories. And in the end, I realized that this challenge was really just meant for me anyways.

Here are 5 Things that I learned after doing this 28 day Photography Challenge:

1. I learned that taking pictures every day improves you’r photography. I mean how could it not, you’re basically getting more practice every time you get your camera out. I definitely feel like my photography has improved after this challenge. If you want to improve your photography then I suggest giving yourself a little daily photo challenge. And If you post about it on your facebook or Instagram page then you are more likely to follow through with it.
2. I learned more about my Camera and Settings. Knowing that I still have so much to learn about photography, I hit up YouTube and found the most helpful video. (This ONE). 👈 This Video taught me to set my camera on the Aperture (AV) setting instead of on the Manual (M) setting, and it seriously is a game changer. I’ve always been taught that shooting in Manual is the correct way, but after watching this video, I am no longer a believer of that. Check out the video to see why. Another change I made when taking pictures is that I now take slightly darker photos knowing that I will lighten them up in editing. I use to try to capture very bright photos on my camera, but in the end I think it made my photos more washed out because not only was I taking bright photos, but I was also then lighting them up even more so in editing.
3. I learned that there is a Perfect Preset (Mood) for every image. I am a collector of Lightroom Presets. Some Presets I’ve bought, others I’ve picked up for free. I really like to use Presets because I feel like they create a “mood” to my pictures. My takeaway here though, after doing this Photo Challenge, is that each individual picture should have its own Perfect Preset. At least what I have found is that there really is a certain Mood that I am envisioning for that image, and trying out different presets on each picture will help you to find the perfect one for what you have envisioned. I know, the popular thing to do is to use the same Preset on all of your photos to give them a cohesive look, but I think it’s more creative to mix it up. If you would like to know more about what Lightroom Presets I use, leave me a comment and perhaps I’ll write up a blog post just on Presets if anyone is interested.
4. I learned to focus More on What I Love. This challenge was in February, the month of Valentine’s day and so the whole idea was to take pictures of things / people / places that I came across during my day that made me feel LOVE. I found myself searching throughout my day for special things that made me feel love. Some of the things that I love are things that maybe I hadn’t really thought much about before so It really was a positive experience.
5. I learned that taking pictures is wonderful for blogging content. I had originally planned to just share the pictures that I took on my photography Instagram page. However, many of the images ended up on my The Wicker House Instagram page as well because a lot of the pictures were of things that had to do with home decor. I also found myself adding the pictures to blog post, and I even wrote up a blog post about trunks after randomly taking a picture of my trunks as something that I love.

I’m really glad that I started this challenge and stuck with it for the whole month. It was a great learning experience for me. Moving forward, I won’t continue taking picture every single day because it did feel a bit overwhelming, but I do think that I will start taking pictures a little more often than I did before because of all of the great benefits listed above.

So Here are all of the pictures that I took for the Month of February of what I love.

Perhaps I may do this challenge again sometime, maybe next February ?? And Maybe next time I can get someone to do the challenge with me 🙂

Do you have any questions or comments? if so, please leave them below.

Thank you for stopping by,

Emily