Thanks to a intriguing invitation from Kathryn Greenhill, I've started off the year by participating in the Daily Image 2011 challenge on Flickr.

Daily Image 2011 involves posting a photo or video of yourself each day for 365 days, or however many days you can manage. You, or part of you, must appear in each day's picture. The details are on the Librarians Matter blog, and on the Daily Image 2011 Flickr group page.

I'm a sucker for a challenge it seems, although I try to keep it realistic ;) Daily blogging challenges are a bit beyond my reach at the moment, but a daily photo should be manageable (most of the time anyway!). I decided to take up Kathryn's suggestion to try it for a week at least ...

Well, a couple of weeks have now passed, and I've published fifteen photos of myself (actually, sixteen now at the time of posting). Here's a snaphot of my first fifteen days:



Photos can be uploaded relatively quickly compared to writing blog posts - but they can be just as challenging, as every photo will reveal something about me. I'm already wondering about how I want to present myself through this challenge. How open or private do I want to be? Which moods am I prepared to put on display? How do I feel about showing my imperfections? And should every photo be "interesting"?

I think I will persevere with the Daily Image 2011 challenge - partly to find out the answers to those questions. I may not post 365 photos, but I'll give it a go for as long as I can, or at least try to post a couple of times a week.

I have a feeling that it will reveal more than I initially anticipate as the year goes on. That has happened before in other online challenges, such as blogging, videocasting and story telling. Is this a good thing? My instinct says yes. Participating in a challenge like this, in an atmosphere of trust, and with friends (old and new), encourages me to stretch myself, try new things, push some boundaries. And maybe even get comfortable with looking at photos of myself :)

You can view all of my Daily Image 2011 photos by clicking on the above image, or on this link.