One photo a day in October - Day 31

Phew.  I've made it!  Those of you who have been paying attention will know that at the beginning of October I decided to take part in a "one photo a day" challenge.  And you will also know that to make things more interesting (and much more difficult!) for me I decided to make each of my photos a portrait of a stranger.   And now it is day 31 and I've managed it.  Each day I took a photo of at least one stranger.

I am even more proud of the fact that none of the photos were candids either - for each one I asked the person first if they would mind if I took their photo.  This was nerve-racking on day 1 but by day 31 it was like second nature and pretty easy.  And I am pleased to say that at least 80% of people I asked said yes which surprised me.  This isn't the first time I've embarked on a project like this - a couple of years ago I took a whole load of photos of people from my village - but this was for my Photography A Level.  When I took the photos 2 years ago I only had to explain that I was doing an A-Level at Hillsborough College for my subjects to become very interested and wanting to help me.  This time I didn't have the crutch of an A-Level project to rely on, just a rather weak excuse of an "art project".  But most people were happy to take part when I explained what I was doing so my initial nervousness quickly disappeared.

Anyway, enough of the self-congratulation. On to the photos from the last day.  Today I headed into Sheffield city centre and took a wander.  I initially headed to the Peace Gardens and spotted a City Centre Ambassador.  I thought he would make an excellent subject for a portrait but I was concerned that he would say no as he was a uniformed official.  But thankfully he said yes and even better he didn't change his expression one bit which was exactly what I hoped would happen:



I then noticed a whole load of students dressed up in Halloween costumes raising money for testicular cancer.  So I donated some money - it was an excellent cause after all - and took a couple of snaps in return:





Because of his expression and eyes I selected the last one as my photo of the day.

That last photo was my 66th stranger portrait photo of the month so I decided to create a mosaic of all 66 as a summary of my month of strangers:



This works better if you view it large or even better if you view it super-large.

So overall I am very proud that I managed to complete the challenge. And I've produced a half decent selection of photos a few that I am really pleased with.  But it was hard work and I think I might put my camera away for a few days before I take another photo.