From Daily Photographs to Three Books

When I started my Daily Photo Challenge, I certainly wasn’t thinking about writing books

The original idea was simple enough – take one photograph every day, get outside, keep looking, and see where it took me

What started as a personal challenge has now grown into 1500+ photographs, more than four years of daily photography and, somewhat unexpectedly, three books

 

Want to see book 1? Click here

 

How did the first book happen?

There was one particular day that changed that, though

On May 27th 2023, I printed a canvas from one of my photographs as a gift for my cousin. She liked it, and that got me thinking – if one photograph could work as a canvas, perhaps there was something more I could do with all the photographs I had accumulated

That was really the moment the idea of making a book started to take shape

I had no idea what I was doing, of course, but I thought I’d give it a go

After completing the first year of the challenge, I had 365 photographs sitting on my computer and realised I had created something I didn’t really want to leave there

I’d enjoyed looking back through them and seeing the changing seasons, the places we had visited and all the little moments we had noticed along the way

So I thought, why not turn them into a book?

The first My Years in Photos was born

It was a fairly simple idea (in theory) – one photograph for each day, bringing together a whole year of the challenge in something I could actually hold in my hands

The only problem was that I didn’t have a clue what I was doing

There was a lot of trial and error, plenty of learning along the way and quite a bit of dedication needed to turn a collection of photographs into something that actually looked and felt like a book

But practice, persistence and dedication got me there

There was another reason for doing it too. I decided that if I was going to make a book from the project, it would be nice if it could help somebody else as well

The first book raised money for Bassetlaw Hospice and Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust

Suddenly, those photographs were doing more than just sitting in an album

Then came Book 2

 

Want to see book 2? Click here

 

Of course, there was one slight problem with making a book from a daily photo challenge

I hadn’t stopped taking photographs

By the time the second year was complete, there was another 365 days of photographs to choose from

So there was really only one thing to do

Make another book

My Years in Photos – Book 2 followed the same basic idea, documenting another year of the challenge and continuing the charity fundraising

By this point I was beginning to realise that the books weren’t just a way of keeping a record of the photographs

They had become part of the story of the challenge itself

And then came Book 3

 

Want to see the books? Click here

 

The challenge kept going

365 days became 730, then 1,000, then 1,500+

Along the way there were photographs of wildlife, landscapes, flowers, fungi, insects, weather, walks and plenty of things that I would probably have walked straight past before starting the challenge

Reaching 1,500 days felt like a pretty good excuse for another book. In fact, I set Day 1500 months ahead as my target date for the publication of Book 3, giving myself a definite deadline to work towards

So My Years in Photos – Book 3 became a reality

This time there is both a digital version and a printed edition, making it possible to experience the book in a couple of different ways

And perhaps the biggest difference is that the photographs now represent much more than a single year

The three books cover the first three years of the challenge, but the challenge itself is now more than four years old

They are part of a much bigger record of getting outside every day, looking around and finding something worth photographing

More than just photographs

One of the things I like most about the books is that they show how much there is to see when you make a point of looking

Not every photograph is of something rare or spectacular

Some are tiny details

Some are things I’ve walked past dozens of times before

Some are wildlife that stayed still long enough for me to get a photograph

Others are simply moments when the light, weather or landscape happened to look right

That’s really what the whole challenge has taught me

You don’t necessarily need to travel somewhere exotic or find something extraordinary

Sometimes you just need to stop and look

What’s next?

The slightly strange thing about writing about three books is that the challenge hasn’t stopped

In fact, the material for Book 4 is now complete

The challenge has moved into its fifth year, so there is already another year’s worth of photographs underway

That means Book 4 isn’t something I’m waiting to start – the photographs are already there, just waiting for me to turn them into the next book

And there is something quite satisfying about that

When I look back at the first book now, I still feel incredibly proud of it. At the time, simply managing to turn a year of daily photographs into a book felt like a huge achievement. Getting to Book 3 feels quite a bit more special, because it shows just how far the idea has come

Having three books of daily photographs also gives me something I didn’t really appreciate when I started – the chance to look back and see patterns emerging. You start to notice when the first flowers appeared, when the leaves changed, when particular wildlife turned up and how much those timings can vary from one year to the next

Three years of photographs give you a very different perspective on the changing seasons. You begin to see that nature doesn’t work to an exact calendar, and that things can arrive earlier or later depending on the year

And perhaps that’s one of the things I like most about having the books. They aren’t just collections of photographs – together, they are becoming a record of what I’ve seen, when I’ve seen it and how the natural world around me changes from year to year

For now though, I’m quite happy to look back at the first three and think about just how far one photograph a day has taken me

The three books

You can find out more about all three My Years in Photos books, including the digital and printed editions, on the Books page