Having trouble with Project 365

I’ve been having a lot of trouble sticking with my Project 365. I haven’t missed a day yet, but it’s getting harder and harder to come up with something to photograph every single day.

• I have a lot of routines in my life, especially on weekdays, and these routines seem very… well, routine. I get up, get ready for work, drive to work on one of two routes, park my car, walk to the office, work until lunch, eat lunch, come back to the office, work till 5, go to the gym or run errands, drive home on one of two routes, spend time with Doc, eat dinner, maybe watch a little TV, maybe work on my computer, get ready for bed, go to bed. I’ve tried taking photos on each of these “legs” of my daily journey, with varying degrees of success, but it’s unsatisfying. It feels like I’m not really trying; if I take a photo out the windshield of my car as I’m stopped at a red light, I’m really doing it just to get the picture for the day out of the way, and not because the view out the windshield is beautiful, or interesting, or inspires me. Later, when I post the photo, I can usually come up with a little description that makes it seem like it was my intention all along, when really I feel like I’m totally faking it.
• About 75% of the time, I get to the end of the day, it’s nearly bedtime, and I haven’t taken any pictures. My brain is frozen; ideas and inspiration are locked out. I roam aimlessly around the house, trying to think of fucking anything worth photographing. It’s too dark and cold to go outside, and it’s too late to go somewhere else. I open cabinet doors, looking for an interesting composition of bottles or jars. I think about taking yet another photo of the cats. I wonder if it’s worth it to take a picture of my messy desk, or a lamp in my house, or my feet. For example, right now it’s almost 9:30, I need a picture, and I don’t want to leave the house because I’m tired. What the fuck do I do?
• And I have GOT to stop taking pictures of the cats. Seriously. They cannot be my fallback subjects, my easy way out.
• Someone commented on my initial Project 365 post, “It is nice to see someone play with photos instead of trying to take the perfect one.” But I’ve begun trying to do that. I didn’t start out Project 365 with the intention of taking a GREAT photograph every single day; the point was to just take A photograph, period. Kind of a “can she stick with it for a full year” type of personal test. However, my own sense of perfectionism (and not doing anything halfassed) has since pulled me down the path of You Must Take A Fantastically Fascinating Photograph Every Single Day Or You Are A Failure.
• I don’t have daily opportunities to do anything or go anywhere interesting. Maybe I need to force the issue and figure out a way to make that happen.
• Maybe what I need to do is give myself specific assignments for short photo series.

At any rate, here are some of my recent photos… the ones that I like, that I don’t feel too ashamed about the half-assed way I went about taking them.