Documenting a Week In The Life

Documenting a Week In The Life. Here’s some Photo Evidence of Spring.

I was hoping for a great week starting today. A week of seeing friends, fun packages in the mail (finally ordered my dream bag), traveling some and even going to a museum. Now my back is still giving me problems so I’m not sure it will be as fun as I was expecting, not if I have to stay in bed another day. It’s boring the hell out of me. But at least I can lay flat on my back in bed and write blog posts, while planning for next week, when nothing special will happen but there is a photography project that I am thinking of joining. And the more I think about it, the more excited I become…

Maybe you’ve heard of the project A Week in the Life? I am think about doing it for the first time this year. Now I am wondering if anyone wants to join in?

I am a huge fan of Ali Edwards, since way back. She is a scrapbooking mom who has made a business of her hobby and biggest passion: to document life (what a dream job!). Among other things she designs digital stamps (words and labels mainly, like the overlay I used here) to use in digital scrapbooking and so called hybrid scrapbooking (where you do some layout on the computer, print it out and then embelish the photo in a treaditional way).

I don’t call myself a scrapbooker, but I have a as big a passion for documenting as any scrapbooker. I think it’s in my blood, and I can’t help it. I call it memory keeping. When I create Blurb books, it might be a form of digital scrapbooking, though I think of it as layout and book making. I just don’t get scrapbook layouts seen online (where it looks like the scrabooker wants to hide their ugly photos behind layers of pretty papers and ribbon).

Still I read every single one of Ali’s posts (and was so sad to read about her divorce). Her blog is just awesome, and is one of the few who continues to be so year after year. Ali inspires me a lot in the way she tackles her life project by project. She writes awesome posts in series, divided into personal topics. She shares a lot of fun photography projects that you are invited to be inspired by – for free (as well as paid online classes). The one that I am thinking about joining, Week In The Life, is free and starts next Monday. Ali describes it like this on her blog:

A seven-day documentary project, Week In The Life is an annual opportunity to capture the simple everyday details of your life with photos and words.

This year the week is April 23-29. That means you still have time to think about it and prepare your camera or phone. Ali stresses that you can document everything, or just one little bit every day. Go huge, or minimize the project. Do it your way!

I’m thinking I will carry my Nikon d50 with me daily and document what I see: people, work, buildings, commute and home. I will try to write too, some daily journaling in a word document at the end of each day. I’m thinking that I want to capture how an ordinary work week might look. I then want to create my pages digitally in InDesign, maybe for a Blurb book. I’m not sure I will include the entire week in the album of 2012, or make a special book for The Week in Life project. I guess it depends how fun it is, how many photos I take, how I feel about it when it happens… I don’t know what or how I will share this on the blog, but I will update you about it, I promise.

It would make me so happy if you guys would wanna join in!? Pleeeease?