4 Ways to Make Photography Part of Your Routine

Scrapbook Confession 001: I'm not taking enough pictures. I'm not taking enough pictures of my day-to-day routine, or even the events going on in my life. I'm just not taking pictures of what's going on around me and I'm not sure why.

Usually I like to fuss around and figure out why something is going wrong -- I have a much easier time fixing it that way. But I don't even know where to start with this one. Is it because it's freezing and I spend most of my days in the house? Is it because of the short days with such little light? Is it because winter emotions are hard enough as it is without feeling like there are picture worthy moments?

I don't really care why it's happening, I'm just going to take proactive steps to make it better in the future. And really, that's all I can ask for -- I can sit back and be angry or annoyed at myself for not taking photos all winter and lament on all the little moments that I'll forget, or I can just suck it up and do better.

Now I'm not really one of those people who just says 'I'll do better' and it magically happens. I need a plan of action. Steps that will help guide me to being better -- and in this case, specifically being better at taking more pictures of my everyday life.

How am I going to do that?

1. Thursday3 already works really well for me. The public accountability and the clear actionable tasks are what make it such an easy challenge to complete. I'm going to branch out a little and find other hashtags that will help me to remember to snap a picture and share it.

2. Take more photos each day. I'm finding that almost all my non-work photos are photos that I post publicly and I want to document more than just the life I share on Instagram.

3. Convert all my gross winter everyday photos to black and white. The dark days and weird shadows of winter make taking good everyday photos pretty much impossible. So instead of sulking and hating the way all my pictures turn out, I'll just change them all to black and white. This way I won't have to worry about the awful lighting.

4. Collect App. A little bit of private accountability goes a long way too. I like that this app sends me a notification each day asking me if I've taken a picture. Although right now I have it set to 7pm, which means it's already dark out and my chances of getting a good picture are slim to none. I think I might move the notification up earlier in the day and see how that works out.

Goals. Plans of Action. Steps to get to where I want to go. That's always been my key to success. I'm pretty sure that with these plans I'll be able to get out of my photo-slump asap.