Take Twelve

Photo projects and challenges have been circulating around the scrapbooking world for years now, and for good reason. They give you a goal to work toward, a healthy dose of accountability, a chance to develop your photography skills, and enough inspiration and community to keep you motivated.

There’s one photo project in particular that’s wonderful for preserving a “slice of life” look at your everyday existence—and it’s manageable for even the busiest schedule. The idea is to take 12 photos on the 12th day of the month for a period of 12 months. It has gone by different names in different venues around the web, but here at Ella Publishing Co., we’re calling it the Take Twelve Project, and it has arrived just in time for the year 2012.

There is something about the number twelve that feels familiar, isn’t there? We bake our cookies and buy our donuts in dozens, we set our internal clocks to the steady pace of twelve months each year, and perhaps most importantly, we scrapbook on 12-inch squares of paper. The Take Twelve Project is just one more way the number “12” is about to revolutionize your memory keeping. Let me show you a few ways it has revolutionized mine.

A Good Crop of Photos

	12 Favorite Photos In 2007, I created an album featuring 12 significant photos taken that year. This collage shares four of those photos with tiny thumbnails of the very simple scrapbook pages I created with those photos.
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Ansel Adams, one of my favorite photographers, once said “twelve significant photos in any one year is a good crop.” I’ve taken these wise words to heart in many ways through the years. It has taught me to let go of the pressure of what it means to be sitting on 40,000 photos in a digital age. If Adams was happy with just twelve amazing photographs in a calendar year, then I could be, too. In fact, in 2007, I created an entire album around the concept for my book The Scrapbooker’s Almanac. (For the record: when you start hoping for 12 significant photos and end up with more, it’s like icing on the cake!) The heart of what Adams meant, I believe, is that editing is an essential part of being a photographer. A story can be told in 120 photos, or it can be told in 12. Simple is best.

January 2010 Photo Mosaic

	12 on the 12th Photos In 2010, I took twelve photos on the 12th day of each month. This is my crop of twelve photos from January, which I shrunk and formatted into a single 4 x 6 print for each month of the year. I then collected each mosaic print into a photo-album.
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Photo projects with specific parameters are certainly not a new invention, and the “12 on the 12th” idea has been around a while, too. Different groups of scrapbookers around the world have participated in this challenge for the last few years. I first played along in 2010. I had already completed a full “project 365” (taking a photo a day for an entire year) in 2008, and I was itching to try another project of a smaller scale.

When I heard about this approach, I was intrigued. It wouldn’t tell the same kind of story as a month-long or year-long photo-a-day project would because the pacing was completely different. To use a running metaphor, it was the difference between a marathon and twelve short sprints.

12-Photo Mini-Album Page

	12 on the 12th Album Page In my 2010 mini-album, I collected each mosaic print (like the January one above) into a photo-album-style scrapbook. The left hand page included a simple title, with journaling tucked behind it.
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I’ve learned some interesting things about myself by participating in photo projects, but one of the most important is this: a full-to-brimming life consists of big milestones and small moments both. When you train your camera only at the significant events like weddings, first days of school, and awards ceremonies, you miss a lot.

I believe details do matter in documenting and scrapbooking our memories, but I don’t believe that attention to detail should be difficult, stressful, or boring. When you commit to a photo project, you commit to becoming a better photographer—and you also commit to becoming a better storyteller. Both are worthy and achievable. Once you get rolling you’ll see that interesting photography ideas are everywhere, and we all know that with great photos come great ideas for scrapbooking layouts!

Take Twelve Project Page Template

	12-Photo Sketch This sketch by Donna Jannuzzi is just one of twelve sketches included in the Take Twelve guided inspiration kit. Digital versions of each sketch (in the form of layered Photoshop templates) will also be available. It's never been this easy to squeeze lots of photos onto your scrapbook pages!
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We at Ella Publishing Co. believe memory-keeping is an essential part of life—and anything worth doing is worth having the right tools for the job. That’s why we’ve created the Take Twelve Project Kit: a jam-packed collection of photography and scrapbooking ideas to keep you engaged with the 2012 Take Twelve Project all year long. (To be released on 12/12/11.) I hope you’ll join us!

Elizabeth Dillow is an avid photographer who loves a photo project big or small. In addition to working on the 2012 Take Twelve Project, she is an instructor at Big Picture Classes and blogs at {A Swoop and a Dart}. She lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming with her husband, Matt, and daughters Madeline, Grace, and Bridget.