My parents got me my first digital camera for Christmas in 2002, so that I could take pictures of my life in Philadelphia and share them via email. That was the camera I used when I started this blog in 2005 (although, in those days, the photos were primarily afterthoughts). Later that year, my parents helped me upgrade to a better camera (a Panasonic with Leica lens and a 12x optical zoom).

That camera kept me happy for another year, although I would often look at the images on the food blogs I was coming to love and long to achieve the crispness and background blur that they featured. In the spring of 2007, Scott got himself a Canon DSLR. He let me borrow it for a day to take pictures for my short-lived Reading Terminal Market blog. I fell hard and fast for the images it made.

I was still in grad school then and my funds were limited, but somehow I conjured enough money from the ether to get myself a Nikon D50 and a 50mm lens (had I known that Scott and I would end up together, I might have gone with a Canon. Maybe). I loved that camera and used it until last June, when Scott upgraded me to a D90. It makes luscious photos and is nearly always with me.

I turned 31 last Friday (the day the above photo was taken) and have decided to do a yearlong photo project from that birthday to the next. My goal is to create a set of 365 images, each somehow representative of the day on which it was taken. They’ll live here and on Flickr.