When I first started photography school over 15 years ago I would take my camera with me where ever I went. Every birthday party, cookout, and visit to my mother's was documented in some way. I would take long drives out Rt. 8 in Kentucky to take pictures. I was learning and getting lots of practice, I was discovering my passion for taking intimate pictures of the people and places around me. Through the years as I turned photography into my main source of income and I started to notice something was slowly getting lost, my enthusiam for personal work was disappearing. I stopped taking my camera to family functions, because my passion turned into work, in my head every picture I took would add more work to my growing heavy load. I was warned by many people that this would happen, always claiming I wouldn't let it happen to me. As I was looking back through my images from last year I noticed something was lacking, my life. I had documented the lives of my clients, but had no images of my own family and friends. I document tidbits of my life everyday via my iPhone, so I'm not claiming to be a total slacker, but as much as I love that phone, my family and friends deserve nice professional images too.

On January 1 I decided to do what a lot of photographers do, I started a daily photo project. Since my favorite thing to photograph is people, I decided to start a portrait project. At first, I was only going to photograph people I know, then I decided to expand it to photographing strangers as well. My goal is to shoot a new person everyday for as long as I can. So far it has been an awesome experience. My camera is with me a lot more, so I am not only photographing people, but also my surroundings, and the things I see. I have been getting so much positive feedback, some people even telling me they cant wait to be part of the project. It has been challenging at times, but I needed a good challenge. I am excited to see where it takes me throughout the year.

I posted some of the images on my Facebook page this month. I think will also do a monthly post on my blog.

I want to thank everyone for participating so far. Here are some of my images from January.