Interactive Instagram Project Foto 365 -

NEW YEAR, NEW GOALS & ARTWORK

Last year was all about getting used to my new normal, and being able to balance between mother and artist. I even set rules for ending maternity leave. Of course, nothing I had imagined or planned worked out. Long story short I needed to work smarter and all around my little person.

Read: Maternity Leave Over

PROJECT FOTO 365

As an artist, I work very closely with photography. It influences my work and sometimes becomes my work. I have taken so many photographs throughout the years, that I have a small vault of photographs that I have set aside to work on for future projects. Somehow that future never comes, out of lack of time.

This is where the #ProjectFoto365 idea for Instagram came from. I wanted to make it about getting better at my craft, especially capturing better photographs. Realistically speaking I knew I would fail before I even began, I may not have that time to take a photo each day. Yet, I knew I had that vault of photographs that I have been itching to play with. I could make time to edit and work on those photographs, one each day.

NO FORMAL ANNOUNCEMENT

I didn’t want to post about the project, or even let my followers know about it quite yet. I wanted the first month to be unique and sincere interaction. No one knew the rules and with Instagram’s new algorithm, those that don’t actively follow my feed won’t see the photos.

THE INTERACTION

I post one photograph, edited and I tell a little story about it each day. After seven days, I see which is the most liked photograph and that is the piece that gets printed to become my next art piece. I have my favorites but it’s not me that decides, but my Instagram followers.

I love interactive art, I know this is not quite interacting with the work but the audience is part of the process. I have seen some people share their favorite piece on other social media. This is great because if they really want that piece to be picked they just have to ask their friends/family to like the photograph on my Instagram.

FINISHING THE PROJECT

I’m excited to see what body of work I end up with at the end of the year. Now go take a look at my Instagram feed and vote. Remember sharing is caring. Instagram.com/LeslieMGuzman or follow along at the #ProjectFoto365

If you don’t have Instagram you can still see the photographs on my Facebook page, Facebook.com/BottegaGuzman.

UPDATE 2019

First of all YEAHY for me that I completed this 365 day art challenge I set up for myself. Whoo hoo!!!

Now I’ll tell you the truth, this was so hard. I started the challenge strong, excited and ready to tackle. Then I was a day behind, then it was a week behind, and then it got to three weeks late. Argggghhh! Life, sick days, holidays or etc. would happen and here I was trying to play catch up. I didn’t just want to slap things together and I wanted to have full week themes each week.I think that if someone wants to take on this challenge they should start ahead, instead of working day at a day.

Either way, I’m still glad I did it. I love the interaction and at times I was surprised at the favorites picked by my followers. Some photos and themes were personal and I know may not turn into series but I still wanted to post. Originally I wanted to start working on the photos as I was working on the project but I realized I was tackling too much. I would have gone crazy last year. Now this is an entire new year and now I can work on this series. It will be the favorite of the week, for each week of the year. This means 52 pieces! I know that’s A LOT of work for me to do. Each will be something, but I haven’t decided on size.

I decided that I’m going to narrow it down to the best of the month for each month of the year. Those 12 will be my featured pieces of this series. I will still let my followers decide. (Must vote by commenting on the photograph of choice, here) Hopefully someone will get inspired to do a similar challenge, if you do let me know!

UPDATE 2022

Ok, you know the reason for the delay. It started at the end of 2019 and continued to have effect until this very year. We shall not name it but maybe now that we are somewhat back to normal we can finish my interactive project. I’m hoping for next year.

So much has changed since the original photographs were posted on my then art account. That instagram account is no longer active, I don’t know if it’s the algorithm or haters that reported some of my photos. I decided to merge my personal and art account but it isn’t what I want. I share a lot of personal, and behind the scenes and less finished art. You will have to stay tuned if I create a new studio one or just jump on another platform.