One year of #Before8h48
that’s a wrap! 365 mornings #before8h48
Around a year ago I wrote about why I had decided to do a 365 project documenting our mornings.
The mornings are sort of a long suspended moment for me - the time before everyone heads out into the outer world, the moments of just waking, unloading the darkness of the night and gearing up for the rush of the day to come. The hinterland between night and day. The cocoon of home where you can just be. They’re a blank page , a new start, a moment that I am mainly just “mum” too - and all that I wanted to document.
When I look back now January to June passed in a bit of a frenzy.
January
February
March
The pitch black mornings of January blurred by tired eyes and high ISO gave way to February and March when for the first time real daylight entered our mornings! We packed school bags, hunted socks, panicked about homework, sorted washing, emptied dishwashers, ran out to early morning doctor’s appointments and, occasionally, sat still for just a moment contemplating the day ahead.
April
In April we passed a few days away together, the tulips flowered and I went to Ukraine with Photographers Without Borders to document the life of Zaporuka. The mornings there were the same, but different. Different light, different lives but the same rituals - coffee, preparing meals for the day to come and hide and seek behind curtains!
May
June
May and June passed in a streak of sunlight. End of the school year activities, concerts, exams and a lot of work .
The photos piled up and six months in I wrote about how the project was going together with Caroline, my project friend!
I remember thinking that, at the time of writing towards the end of June, I couldn’t wait for the holidays to begin. I couldn’t wait for the frenetic pace of the school year to end and for a slower, gentler rhythm to take over.
But although the change of routine was so wanted it brought its own challenges. The mornings were no longer the same - no last minute homework, no rushing for the school bus and slowly but surely, as they adapted to the rhythm of the holidays, no kids around at all (except in bed asleep).
It was all I had dreamed of. Lazy summer mornings filled with sunshine and colour but I was lost. I was also exhausted. Not because of my #before8h48 project - because of lots of other things but…
July
The thing with 365 projects, without stating the obvious, is that they follow you through the good and the bad. The times when everything is light and you are motivated and full of energy. And, when you are not.
And ultimately succeeding and finishing a project is dealing with the moments when it is hard.
Often for me that has been by trying to learn something new or work on a technique or theme. I am a big believer in planning and anticipating difficult periods and having lists of ideas and things to improve on and themes to work on. But, if I learnt one thing from this project, it’s that sometimes you have to let go of all of that and concentrate on the moment instead. One moment every morning.
It took me a while to adjust, the project took on a different look, a different pace and although at the time I didn’t realise it, it was a much needed reminder that there are different ways to do things.
Just because I wasn’t documenting my mornings with the children I was still documenting the mornings - my mornings. During the summer #before 8h48 became much more of a personal (to me) project, making the most of that time before anyone or most people were up.
Of course there were days that people were around, sometimes my children, or other family or friends we had staying. But it was less frenetic and less planned.
I went much more with the flow. I “parked” the themes, the ideas of techniques to work on and took each morning at a time, shooting what I saw, what I felt each morning.
I didn’t really realise at the time but in a way it was like a pause. I didn’t stop taking photos but I did pause the “striving”. I stopped thinking about what I “should” be capturing and just concentrated on photographing one thing I liked each morning. One thing that made me smile. That was enough.
Things that make me smile
And I did some self portraits. This is probably the only thing I did that was forced. And it shows (or at least my desire to hide away shows, in complete contradiction to the fact that I am taking self portraits). But I think that was part of the process of working out a different way of being, not just in relation to my 365 project and working as a photographer but in terms of living in general.
This maybe seems a little heavy for a post about a 365 project - but I definitely believe that you learn something about yourself with each and every personal project. You just have to make sure you listen.
Summer Self Portraits
summer self portraits
Day by day the summer passed and the images that made me smile piled up!
August
As we started to gear up for another school year. I started to plan again. I looked back at the images I had taken January to June and picked out the themes I wanted to continue working on. Mini projects within the project.
September
A lot of the themes were the same - self portraits with my youngest in the time after the older ones have left for school and before he gets dropped off, keeping track of the seasons, intentional portraits of the children and more candid environmental portraits.
September saw all four back to school and mornings began to form themselves around imposed timetables of school and activities again.
Self Portraits with Raphaël
October
October saw me travel to Marrakech and then all of us to Malaysia on holiday.
The project continued, as did the themes including self portraits and, one of my favourite themes - the mundane. The ordinary things and places or bits of places that don’t normally ever get photographed.
Self Portraits
And the beautiful moments of nothingness. The moment in between, seeing what has been and what is to come and just waiting.
The moments inbetween
The mundane
November
November came and went in a flurry of work. The mornings were getting darker and colder. The sunshine seemed far behind and the fairy lights of Christmas started to approach.
December
And, then suddenly we were in December and the calendar was counting down. I started putting together the slideshow you will see below and felt a deep sadness. I could only see all the images I hadn’t taken - and there were so many!
But now when I watch it I smile. This project taught me much more than just that I can take a photo every morning for a year. Some of what I learnt I planned and I’ll probably always do a little of that as leopards don’t change their spots that easily. But I also learnt to let go a little and that is good!
Our mornings, #before8h48.
(note : the images flow quickly in the slideshow - it’s intentional. Mornings are often like that. But, also, mornings are intimate. and it’s not just my mornings so I invite you in but just for a split second xx).