Tere Hernandez-Bonet in Richmond, Virginia made #365daysof47 in which she posted one black and white photo of herself on Instagram every day for one year, beginning on her 47th birthday.
Why did you decide to do this project? It started as a whim. I have always loved seeing those photo projects that people do where they take a pic of themselves every day and then do a sped up slide show of all of them in order. I thought it would be interesting to see how much I change over the course of a year. But I wanted to make it more of a creative outlet for myself rather than just a time-lapse project by taking the same pic every day. I gave myself some parameters to work with. Each photo would be a black and white square format and a pic of just me (yes, a few cats made it in). And no stockpiling images. Each photo used was taken on the same day I posted it for a true representation of me in time.
How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. It started out as a lighthearted project but became part of my daily ritual. Most days I looked forward to it but there were days that were not so fun. I lost two beloved cats over the year and the last thing I wanted to do was to take a selfie. So you'll see me crying in a few shots, but that was a true representation of me that day. It became a visual diary of sorts. I can look back and when I see a certain image, I know exactly what I was thinking and feeling on that day. I really tried to make them interesting. I didn't want it to be all glamorous selfies. Some days I'd wake up with a vision of my shot and then work through it in my head. Sometimes I'd see an object or lighting effect and it would remind me of something or spark an image composition. For instance, I saw a kids barrette on the dresser and it looked like a moth. That reminded me of the movie poster from The Silence of the Lambs and then I suddenly had my image for the day. I tried not to think too far ahead. I didn't want to spend more than a few minutes capturing each shot.
When I completed this project on my birthday, I didn't realize how much I would miss the daily ritual of it. I will continue to post new images from time to time because I really enjoy making them.
