Today is the last day of the 2009/365 flickr photo challenge. I’m disappointed in myself because I made it to 263 and didn’t finish the challenge. Since October, 2009 I haven’t been as disciplined as taking a photo a day. Below is a sample of the 263 photos I did take.

Instead of lamenting failure, I’m once again challenging myself to complete the 2010/365 photo challenge.

You must check out D’Arcy Norman’s photoblog. It’s inspiring – and one that is definitely in my reader for the 2010/365 challenge and Dean Shareski has posted his thoughts already on the The Year in Photography. The edtech365/2009 group especially for those involved in education and/or technology has already created the edtech365/2010 group with a discussion started on how to use this group in the classroom. That’s definitely worth exploring.

I discovered (albeit a little late into the challenge) Daily Shoot on twitter. That’s one piece of inspiration that I’ll be relying on for the 2010/365 challenge. If you’re thinking about joining the challenge for 2010 – do it! Click on the links some more tips from some veterans of the challenge to take a photo-a-day for a whole year! Digital Photography School has become one of my favourite photography blogs. It’s site boasts a tonne of skills, tips and techniques from photographers around the world.

My other favourite photography blog, Photojojo suggest the following tips:

# Bring Your Camera Everywhere
Yes, everywhere. Get in the habit. Grocery stores, restaurants, parties, work, and school. Going to a movie theatre? Snap a pic of the flick with your phone–there are photo-ops everywhere. If you have one of those tiny tiny cameras, you have no excuse not to have it in your pocket all the time. And if you don’t? Camera phones are a great substitute.

# Make Posting Easy
You can install blog software like Movable Type or WordPress on your own site and create an entry for each photo, but for true ease of use, try a photo sharing site. Flickr will let you post a week’s worth of photos in 2 minutes flat, and fotolog and Photoblog.com are geared toward a photo-a-day workflow. Making it fast and easy means you’re much more likely to do it.

# Vary Your Themes
Try to capture the day’s events in a single photo. Perform photographic experiments. Take a photo of someone new you meet, something you ate for the first time, or something you just learned how to do. Take a photo of something that made you smile. And don’t forget to take a photo of yourself at least once a month so you can remember how you’ve changed, too.

# Tell a Story
Use your blog entry, or your photo description, to explain what’s going on in each day’s photograph. How good did that dinner taste? What made you want to take a photo of that stranger? It’ll help you remember down the road, and it gives friends following along a better appreciation of why you took the photo you did. You don’t need to write a lot, just enough to add some color.

# Don’t Stop, No Matter What
This is perhaps the most important tip of all. You will get tired of taking a photo every single day. Some days, you will consider giving up. Don’t. The end result is worth the effort. Remind yourself why you wanted to do it in first place.

There will be times you’ll think there’s nothing interesting left to take a photo of, and times you’ll think you didn’t do anything exciting enough to take a photo of. There’s always a great photo to be made.

Get out of the house and take a walk. Or stay inside and look around. Take a photo of something important to you. Take a photo of the inside of your house so you can see how your taste has changed over the years. Take a photo of anything, just don’t stop.

N.b. It helps if you’ve told your friends about the project and asked them to follow along. Their encouragement will keep you going!

# Post early, post often
Plan on going through and posting your photos at least once a week so you don’t get backlogged and feel overwhelmed. Ideally, post every day or two. Again, spend the time up front to make sure it’s quick and easy to post. It’ll make all the difference.