Dawnstar Australis

A new year, a new project. This will be my third year setting myself a photography project. Last years rather ambitious Photo Challenge Year did not go as well as I’d hoped mostly because I had given myself way to much to do in what really is not a lot of time. As I failed my challenge I do not get the reward (which may end up being a good thing)

The previous project 365 Before Thirty was quite successful but equally stressful (honestly a 365 project is quite a challenge but entirely worthwhile). This year I opted for a sort of mid way point and decided on a 52 week project for the year. And it involves critters. Lots of critters.

It’s no secret I have an absolute passion for macro photography, particularly nature macro photography. I love the challenge of taking photos of bugs, lizards, spiders, flies, snakes and pretty much any other critter I can find out in the open. To that end the challenge this year is to take 52 really good critter photos.

Nominally it will be one critter a week but to allow myself leeway for holidays, being sick and and occasionally just wanting to be lazy as long as I end up with 52 good critter shots by the end of the year I will be happy. The shiny little fellow above doesn’t count as that photo was taken on Dec 31st, 2011.

The Rules

As with all personal photo projects this one needs some rules (well guidelines about) on how I’m going to play it, so:

• Nominally one critter photo a week. Some leeway where needed
• Critter may be any animal I can find but preferably one in the wild (If I find a particularly interesting on in a captive environment it will be added)
• Where possible the critter will be identified as accurately as possible
• All posts will be sent to twitter and Google Plus

Help Wanted

In doing this project I need help with two things:

Location, Location, Location

I have a few local haunts that I hunt for critters but it means I’ll likely be seeing the same ones over and over and be making it quite hard for myself to meet the goal of 52 unique critters. As such I’m open to suggestions on where I might go in to find really great critters.

I’d prefer suggestions around the greater Brisbane (Australia) area but I’ll happily take any suggestions for the rest of Australia or indeed anywhere in the world (I need a good excuse to travel more). Peoples gardens make wonderful critter hunting grounds so if anyone is willing to let me roam their yard looking for critters that’d be great as well.

You can contact me via leaving a comment, twitter or via the contact page.

Identification

As mentioned above one of the guidelines is to identify the critters as accurately possible. I have acquired several excellent resources produced by the Queensland Museum to help with this (which I’ll review throughout the year as well) and have a fairly good network of knowledgeable friends but there will always be at least one critter we won’t be able to identify. Anyone willing to donate time occasionally to help identify one of the 52 critters you will be thanked in whatever manner I can find at the time.

The End Result

All good projects need to have a payoff. In previous projects it’s mostly been in the form of camera gear but for the moment I’m pretty happy with what I’ve got so this time around the end goal is to publish a photo book of collected 52 critters. Assuming doing this isn’t astronomically expensive I’d consider giving a free copy to anyone willing to help with the other requests.

So here’s to the new year, let the critter hunting begin!