When I was offered the opportunity of participating in a 30 day photography challenge on Facebook, the first thought that hit me was “this will make a great project” :)

I had earlier thought about dedicating a project this year to photography. It has been almost nine months since I bought my Nikon D7000 and I was really itching for project using it.

The themes of the project were posted on the Facebook Group and each day we posted one picture corresponding to the theme in the album for the day. The themes varied from self portraits to personal possessions to abstract ideas. And its participants varied from newbie photographers to hobbyist to professionals.

Interacting with so many different people with so many different perspectives is like suddenly waking up and realizing that you had been looking at life through monochrome, and someone letting you get a peek at the rainbow :)

The greatest learning lesson came from a realization mid way through this challenge. In the years that I have been an avid photographer, my style has been (naturally) deeply influenced by the people around me. Learning different techniques and patterns, I had forgotten to look at photos the same way I used to look at them years ago.

There is a certain romance in going completely with the feel your heart and not thinking about what you want. These 30 days taught me to listen to the whisper of my heart once again :)

To be absolutely honest, recently I felt happy only when someone looked at my picture and said good things about it. This challenge changed all that, it made me ridiculously happy during the entire process; Let it be the conceptualization of a photograph or the design or even the post processing. I was smiling right through it :)

This project taught me a lot about rediscovering an art-form, and along the way let me learn a bit about my self too.

Thanks a million to the organizers and the participants of the challenge :)

You can find my photos for each day of the 30 day challenge here -> https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150377762694579.407516.733639578&type=1

Ps: There is a lot of talk about further challenges, feel free to join the group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/157574087654577/) to keep updated and to participate :)