About

This is my “it’s probably not another 365 days of self portraits project.” – We’ll see how it goes.

About me

I’m a fifty-something Brit who in 2007 started a project to take a picture of myself every day for a year as a way of learning how to use my new camera. I didn’t realise that along the way I’d learn a whole lot about myself, some good, much bad, and in the process make some life changing decisions. For those around me when I started, my journey was the cause of much pain and turmoil.

The project brought me face to face with the reality of my life; I didn’t like what I found and vowed to change. Unplanned and unexpectedly I fell in love. I had never heard of Springfield Missouri or the Ozarks, but it was there that via my 365 Days project on Flickr I found my best friend, kindred spirit and soulmate, Ginger. Within a couple of months although we were still to meet in person, we’d already decided that we wanted to get married. A month later, and with some trepidation on both our parts, I flew to the US for our first time together. Within moments of meeting at the airport we both knew we’d made the right decision.

I spent the next fifteen months back in the UK dealing with the trials and tribulations of obtaining a US Visa to enter the US to get married. I also had to deal with all the legal, emotional, and logistical problems of moving from one country to another. There followed numerous trips across the Atlantic. We made it a rule to speak to each other every day no matter what, and at weekends we often indulged in marathon calls lasting many hours.

In March 2008, I formally proposed after a visit to an Edward Hopper Exhibition in Chicago. We then filed for my visa. at the end of July I gave three months’ notice at work hoping my visa would be approved in time for me to travel on my flight, already booked for November 28.

On the 21 October I went for my visa interview at the US embassy in London, and my visa application was approved. November 28, I arrived for the final time in the US as a non-resident, leaving my two grown up boys and siblings in the UK wondering if their father / brother had finally lost it. On Friday February 20, 2009 we were married. I now share a home with Ginger, three step-kids and four cats.

You can read a little bit about it all in our blog:Breakfast in America. Where, as Ginger puts it “Happily ever after still means you have to clean house and pick up after kids.”

You can see my favourite photographs on my blog Struggling with images

About my 2011 365 Days

I’m approaching this year in a very different way to my original 365 Days. Looking back on those pictures what I’ve enjoyed most about them (apart from meeting Ginger!) is the record they’ve preserved. So this time I’m concentrating more on recording my year than trying to take pictures that I think might be considered in some way interesting. I should add that’s not to say I think my original 365 Days project is particularly ‘interesting’, or of photographic merit.

See these pictures as a slideshow

For my earlier 365 days projects, see below:

My original and complete 2007 365 days set (Slideshow)

And my incomplete 2008 project. One day I might even upload the couple of months’ pictures that I took and never bothered putting up on Flickr. It’s probably not as incomplete as I think.