Week in the Life 2012 / Part 1: Getting Started

WHAT IS WEEK IN THE LIFE?
When describing what A Week in the Life (WITL) is I think Ali Edwards (the creative mind behind it all) says it best, "A seven-day documentary project, Week In The Life is an annual opportunity to capture the simple everyday details of your life with photos and words. The albums I’ve created using the basics outlined [on my blog] are some of my most treasured in that they are wonderfully true representations of my family’s life at a particular point in time. From the mundane to the profound, it’s those simple little everyday moments that I treasure most." Go to her site for great inspiration and ideas.


WHY DID I DO THIS PROJECT?

Back in April was when Ali Edwards was doing her WITL and so was everyone else. Why did I wait till June you ask? Well it is not really that I waited but rather missed the opportunity in April as I was just getting started with my Project Life and didn't want to add another thing to my plate. I said, "I will do that sometime this year but not now." All of the sudden June was half way over and as I was looking at my July/August schedule I saw that some big changes were coming in our lives. I realized that if I want to document this time in our lives I better do it now. Literally the next day I began my WITL project and made it all the way through seven days!

HOW DID I GO ABOUT DOCUMENTING THESE DAYS?

The most important thing was writing down what we were doing throughout the days. I used Ali Edward's Daily Sheets to document the words to go along with our days. Of course, I always had my camera ready too. I tried to take many pictures with my DSLR and also have my iPhone handy at all times (especially when I was out and about). One thing I am really glad I did was use my tripod a lot - I was able to capture a lot of in the moment things by using it! To make it easier I left it out all week so when I wanted it I could just grab it and go.

EXTRA DOCUMENTING

Instead of just keeping track of all the clock times in which we did things I also was consistent in documenting some themes every day. 

• I documented what we ate for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks
• Each day I tried to think of something that in our lives I could write a story about and in my album I would dedicate one page each day to a "story." Some of them included: Running, Meals, Photography, Reading, etc. 
• I also filled out this list every day (I used the prompts from these life list cards):
• Thankful for:
• Happy about:
• Worked on:
• Places:
• Frustrated about:
• Listened to:
• For my project life album I took a different picture of our feet each day (in work shoes, church shoes, bare feet, socks, etc.

PUTTING THE ALBUM TOGETHER

Since I took great notes to go along with my pictures I was able to take my time putting this album together.

• Back in April my favorite WITL album that I saw was Lindsay Moreno's that she shared on her blog. I took a lot of my inspiration from her. 
• I used Ali Edward's 12x12 WITL vol. 4 templates and put them together into photoshop
• To edit my photos I used Adobe Camera Raw and RadLab
• I kept all my photos for each day in an individual file so when it came time to start putting the whole thing together I could easily take it one day at a time.
• Once I had all of my pages together (49 of them!!) I uploaded them to Shutterfly and ordered a 12x12 photo book. Can't wait to see it!

Come back tomorrow for a sneak peek of the album!