Late Friday night it was raining and I got the urge to go take a photo. I’m a night person as it is, so heading out at 11pm to go take photo isn’t completely out of the ordinary. I remembered seeing a photo on flickr a while ago of an intersection with a stop light - it was a long exposure and all three lights (red, yellow, green) were visibly lit in the photo. I can’t find a link to the photo, but I decided with the wet roads, I wanted to try something similar and headed out.

I was hunched over the camera with an umbrella for a while trying to protect it from the drizzle (which I did for the most part). Then the cops showed up!

Now, I don’t fault the guy for doing his job. I was hunched over my tripod at midnight taking photos in the rain. There is nothing remotely illegal about what I was doing, but I know it’s not something that most people do He asked what I was doing (taking photos) and if I had any ID - which I gladly gave him. He went back to his car with my drivers license while giving my license number to whoever was on the other end of the radio.

The officer came back and then started with the 20 questions - I was entirely respectful but declined to answer many of his questions. He kept asking and saying he was required to ask and I was required to answer (not true). It’s none of his business where I work or if I go to school for photography… He even made multiple references to terrorism! Give me a break man, you said hi and checked me out, move along. Finally, he went back to his car but sat there for about 10 minutes until I left. My only regret of the night of the night was not taking a photo of him or his car…oh well, that will have to wait until the next time I am harassed.

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Tomorrow starts my 366 Day Challenge. I’ve already been thinking of revising my guidelines. Specifically, on certain days there may be something I want to use as my daily photo that does not belong to the current theme. There could be a concert I go to, or I may be traveling, or attending some other event. These would then be called “event days” or something similar. I have not completely decided yet…and I bet by the end of the year, if I have kept up with the challenge, that the guidelines will have changed a bit…we’ll see. For anyone who hangs out with me, be prepared for me to be toting around my camera much more often starting tomorrow. (To vote for or suggest a theme go to the btjones FeVote page - I’m also thinking of making a mini-app for btjones.com instead of using FeVote but don’t hold your breath)

One last thing - I posted two more photos for consideration in issue 15 of JPG magazine. To vote for me, go to my user page and click on each of the photos that say “Vote Now”.

January 1st I will be starting my 366 day photo challenge with one theme per week. To officially submit a theme for me to use, go to my FeVote 366 Day Challenge page. There you can submit themes or vote on others suggestions. I will try my best to use the top-ranked themes in my challenge. I’ve also included the FeVote widget below:

The 365 challenge is something many aspiring photogs have attempted on Flickr (and many have completed). The basic idea is to take a photo everyday for a year. It comes in a variety of formats; most people take a self portrait everyday, others aim to compose and post a photo of anything for a year. I am going to beat those slackers by a day…a leap day that is.

I’ve never been too keen on the self portrait (though I have on occasion taken a few). Also, I thought I would become bored with any random photo for a year. You may also remember my attempt at creating a theme-a-week group (Picture That) where we would assign a theme and compose one shot a week. I have decided to take a structured approach and combine the random photo route with the theme-a-week concept. My 366 challenge will be one theme a week for 52 weeks (plus two days [including Feb 29th for the leap year]).

I am going to need some help. I think themes out of my own head could be fine, but I fear my photos won’t be as spontaneous and creative as I’d life them to be. So please post your theme ideas here (or email or flickrmail me) and I will try to use as many of them as I can. They can be specific, they can be abstract, a single word, or a whole paragraph. Comment away!

Here are my guidelines (not rules per say, but stuff I will try to do):

• Start January 1st 2008
• Complete December 31st 2008
• Capture and post one photo to my flickr page every day (uploads may not always occur daily but I will try my darndest)
• Post seven photos for each theme (exceptions below)
• Week one will have 6 photos so I can start new themes on Mondays
• Weeks 52 and 53 will either be two 5 photo themes or one massive 10 photo super-theme finale
• No themes will repeat
• I will post my favorite photos here on The B-Log (aiming for one photo from each theme)
• I cannot reject a suggested theme idea unless it is a nearly impossible task to complete
• I can make up new guidelines along the way

Again, if you have any theme ideas (seriously, anything you want) leave a comment.