Ten years ago I started a project. I decided to take a photograph every day to document my life. I started on 5^th May 2009, for no other reason than that was the day the idea popped into my head. As it happens, it was a great time to start, only a few weeks later Katy and I got married and so the Photo A Day project has become an invaluable record of the journey of the Orr family.

Every May, I assemble the pictures into a slideshow. Nothing too fancy, just enough to show I have a passing knowledge of how to use iMovie! Each image gets two seconds of glory before moving on to the next day, which means it is possible to watch a year zip by in around 12 minutes. Further showcasing my iMovie skills, I set the whole thing to music released in that year, something that really helps with invoking memories.

At the ten year anniversary of doing this I have taken the opportunity to have a look through all the slideshows, which is no mean feat as even at only two seconds per day it takes over two hours to watch ten years unfold. In watching it was the mundane photographs that stood out. I deliberately don’t try to capture quality, well composed images. Originally this was for practical reasons – it would be too all consuming to try to produce a decent image every day so I started by literally just snapping anything and more or less stuck with that approach. I’m really glad I did too. The more formal, staged pictures we take tend to be of events we remember clearly anyway. My pictures record what I wouldn’t otherwise remember, the kitchen table after breakfast or the view from a train seat on an otherwise forgettable commute. These are the moments that bring back the memories that nearly got away.

The bigger the archive I create, the more precious this project becomes, so I can’t imagine I’ll stop any time soon, irrespective of the daily fear of forgetting to take a photo! So let’s see what the next ten years has in store!

Music copyright means I can’t upload the slideshows, although I suspect they would very quickly become dull to a casual observer so that is probably for the best! I have, however, included an image from each year below to give a 1/365^th sample!