instagram – John Morrison – Product Strategy and Brand Identity

In 2010 I decided I was going to try to make a point to create and publish something every day. Whether it was a photograph on Flickr or a blog post here or elsewhere, it would be my own, personal accomplishment.

Unfortunately, I didn’t even come close. I could make excuses, but I simply didn’t succeed.

With the advent of Instagram in 2011, it became increasingly easy to do the “one photograph a day” type of project. As much as I’m a fan of digital photography, it takes very little effort to shoot a single image daily on your phone, and that takes all the fire out of it.

So I thought: “Go big or go home.”

At some point, I heard about the work of Jamie Livingston, who took one Polaroid photo a day from 1979 to his death in 1997.

Unfortunately, Polaroid ceased making new instant film in 2008, which seemingly ruled out that idea. At some point, though, I miraculously stumbled onto a group called The Impossible Project. ‘TIP’ is a group of Polaroid enthusiasts who set out to reverse engineer the good old stuff and are now producing new instant film compatible with Polaroid cameras.

Armed with film and a “new” camera, I have set out to shoot and publish one photograph a day using Impossible Project film. With that in mind, I’ve entitled my experiment “The Impossible Year” for a few reasons. The first and most obvious would be in tribute to the company making this possible. Secondly would be sorta tongue in cheek with myself as 2012 is the year the “world is supposed to end” according to the Mayan calendar, which if the world were actually to end, would certainly mean the end of my project. Lastly, it’s a challenge to myself not to fail, saying that my year would be “impossible” states that at some point, I might drop the ball and fail, thus pushing me to prove myself wrong.

So yeah enough BS. I didn’t write anything about this back in January because I wanted to make sure I’d be able to get at least one month under my belt. Now here we are, March is almost over, so it’s safe to say I’m going to keep at it. Please take a moment to look through the photos and feel free to leave comments or ask questions. Thanks!

Chicago to Louisville (and Indianapolis for lunch)

About 11 o’clock this morning we set off from Chicago, south towards Louisville. James brought along some playlists of funk music and snacks for the road and our good friend Lee had decided to join us for this leg. Coincidentally Lee’s girlfriend Rebecca is going to be in Louisville this weekend so it made sense for him to join us. The three of us relaxed and joked around on the road and it wasn’t long before we were stopping to photograph windmills and “Hell Is Real” signs indicating we were definitely deep into the great state of Indiana.

We posed the question of where we should stop for lunch to our Twitter followers and the awesome @JennFree suggested Scotty’s Brewhouse in Indianapolis. Her pitch was compelling and seeing as how I’m on a never-ending quest to try as many different beers as possible, any place with “Brewhouse” in the title immediately appeals to me. Luckily the guys were happy with it too.

When we arrived in Indianapolis we were struck by the beauty of the city. With it’s many beautiful monuments and circles, the downtown area is simply gorgeous. We wandered around a bit, checking out a smoke shop and a vintage styled Dunkin’ Donuts. We stopped off at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ monument and were instantly taken aback by it’s beauty and size. The entry on Gowalla for it mentions it being comparable to anything in DC and I’d say it’s formidable by my memory. Sadly the structure is under restoration but that didn’t prevent us from enjoying it nonetheless.

Scotty’s was a very large sports bar / pub with outdoor seating and a fairly typical menu but a reasonably sized beer selection. Lee and I each tried a local brew and chat a bit before hitting the road again. Lee proposed that the city would be suitable for another visit sometime. I definitely agree. It didn’t hurt our impression though that we arrived there to our first real taste of summer weather (a refreshing change from chilly Chicago.)

From there, it was straight on through to Louisville without stopping. Upon our arrival we hit up local music shop EarX-tacy and then went for some BBQ at Mark’s Feed Store on the suggestion of the wonderful Ms. Amy Guth. The atmosphere was friendly, and the food was okay. The three of us were mostly happy to have arrived.

Tonight we are staying with a friend of Lee and Rebecca’s and tomorrow James and I will bid them adieu and head to Nashville hopefully in time for the East Nashville Beer Festival.

For now, we’re going to hit the local bar scene. Good night folks enjoy the photos!