What Is Project 52? & First Task Completed (Kim)

What is "Project 52"? 

Seniors at Norwalk High School are given the chance to participate in an experience program called Project Explore.  Students can choose to explore any topic of their choosing and work on this project throughout the school year. Recognizing this unique opportunity, Rachael and I decided we wanted to be partners for Project Explore. We sat in Panera at the end of our junior year and began to brainstorm.  What did we want to explore for an entire school year?  Surprisingly, our problem wasn't that we couldn't come up with any ideas.  It was the opposite: we came up with too many.  A few Panera trips and headaches later, Project 52 was born. Rather than pick one topic to focus on, we decided to involve ourselves in a small aspect of each thing we wanted to try.  The 52 symbolizes each week of the year.  Over the summer, we came up with our list of 52 tasks and have begun our journey.  We have no idea what we're going to learn from this experience, so our theme for now is simply discovery. Or, if you're feeling ironic: exploring.

Task #1 Completed 

1. Kim: experimentation with photography.

Social media has greatly increased the significance of pictures in today's society.  But Facebook and Instagram made me realize I don't just love posting pictures; I love being the person holding the camera and taking them.  You know, that relatively obnoxious person at Christmas pleading for you to pose just "one more time" while you are still blinking away the spots from the last unnecessarily bright flash.  Well, I want to be that person, believe it or not.

My parents helped me purchase my first DSLR camera in September, a Canon Rebel T3I. I have not been able to tear myself away from it.  It has quickly become my "claim to fame" among my friend group. They have no qualms about yelling across the room for me to come take a picture with the "pretty camera!" Although I will continue taking, posting, and learning about photos and camera settings, I consider my original "experimentation with photography" task completed.

Cosette, September 2014.

Portrait of Allison Latour taken after the Norwalk High School Pep Rally in October.

Sarah Laverty and Daniel Devine, September 2014 at Shorehaven Golf Club.

EDIT AS OF 12-11-14

I have continued this task since my original experimentation.  In fact, today I held a photo shoot for my cousin who wanted pictures for her Christmas card.  I faced the challenge of shooting in the dark, and I also had a difficult time trying to get her dog to look at me.  But I ended up liking some of the pictures were her dog wasn't looking.  He kept looking at her as if for guidance, and it was so cute!

EDIT - JANUARY 2015