Wow! It's been 366 days, 1 year. We've come full circle and I'm back taking a self portrait of myself on Queen St (although much warmer this time around). We've gone through 365° of Mike (plus a day). As the close of this project has been approaching I have been going back through these images to see what it took to get here. This is a record of my year and reminder of where I've been. I look back at pictures and vividly remember days that seem so long ago and what happened that day (even what isn't pictured). This project was started at a difficult time in my life and created the focus that I needed, it has helped me to not only record my life but also to explore who I am, and share that along with my images with you, my viewers. A year sounds like a long time, but in retrospect it flies by in an instant. I started this thinking a picture a day, how hard could that be? But as you get into the middle of a project like this, you find that you have days where you have a hard time even finding the motivation to pick up the camera yet again. I have give thanks to some close friends who wouldn't let me give up by sending constant messages insisting on more photos be uploaded. Will I do another 365? I don't know. I have grown in this past year. My photography has grown leaps and bounds in the last year (I knew the basics a year ago, today I have learned to produce a polished image that portrays my vision). So I may end up doing another project like this - but for the short term, I am going to be taking a bit of a rest. So, what has it taken to complete this project: • 9,918 pictures were captured in the past year to get 1 picture a day • over 166GB of hard drive space is now committed to pictures Some destroyed equipment: • AF motor on my 18-70mm f3.5-4.5 lens burnt out • SB 600 flash fell off a light stand onto the floor - never to work again - especially after I got it to shoot lightning at my face • focus and zoom elements of a 17-55mm f2.8 lens are seized after dropping it on a parking lot • photographic umbrella center column has fallen out (over use) • umbrella mount in my small strobe light stand, the threading is stripped on it From this project I have done a lot too: • Photographed 2 weddings • Traveled to Las Vegas for photoshop world (farthest I've traveled in my life) • Ended up at PDN Photo Expo in New York City • Also traveled to NYC for photo taking opportunities • Joined the National Association of Photoshop Professionals • Have had the chance to rent and make some fun pictures with studio strobes • Taken studio photography workshops through Pikto and learned from some of the Toronto photographers • Had my work showcased on the websites BlogTo and Torontoist several times • Sold fine art copies of my prints • Become recognized by some of the city's many talented photoblogers (and have been spotted at events around town by them) I have also learned a lot from some very talented people, and hope to continue to learn from them and others: • Joe McNally • David Hobby • Daniel Shipp • Scott Kelby • David Ziser • Josh Cornell Among many many others I must give thanks to both B. Side and Jim Nomad here on flickr, I have been following both your 365's and it always helps to have someone else to gain support from and inspiration through - even if it's just knowing that you're working on the same kind of project I am and facing the same trials and motivational hiccups that I am. Most of all I have to thank everyone who has supported me in this, all of my friends, everyone who has been willing to stand in front of my lens, and everyone who has constantly encouraged me and kept me shooting. (ha, I feel like I'm giving an Oscar speech and the 'wrap it up' light has been flashing for 5 min) So a year is now over...was it what I had expected? No. I had hoped that I may fall in love (or find a long term girl friend), that never happened. I dated some people, and met some wonderful people. I screwed up relationships cause the timing wasn't right. I had hoped I would travel more. I did get to see more of the world than I ever have though. I had hoped to photograph at Casa Loma, Fort York and the Zoo to name a few places I never got to this year. Am I content with where I am anyways now that the year is over? Yes. I wouldn't trade this year in, I wouldn't do anything different, cause it is with our experiences, our triumphs and mistakes that we grow and become who we are. What's next now? I'm thinking the next big project for me is to apply what I've learned in this last year. I am hoping to turn my photography and passion into a paying career, learn the business of the creative market (and what better time than on the brink of a recession :-p ) and with any luck my images will be found published somewhere before this time next year. So, I'm going to wra

KESEN-NUMA CITY, JAPAN - It's 5am on the the north eastern tip of Japan's main island of Honshu, and 75 tons of dead shark is being meticulously arranged into a neat grid of tidy piles, of twenty sharks per pile. If you thought shark finning was exclusively a Chinese problem, think again. Welcome to Kesen-numa City, Japan's shark fin capital. Here, six days a week, small teams of Japanese workers go about the hushed business of industrial shark-finning. By 6.30am, with piles arranged, the sharks are disemboweled first. Hearts are ripped efficiently from their bodies by men wearing brightly coloured rubber boots and aprons. At 7am, the shark corpses are cleaned of their blood by workers wielding water hoses. And by 8am, small teams are silently moving up and down aisles and rows like robots in a Japanese car factory, quickly slicing off every dorsal, pectoral and tail fin from the lifeless, grey lumps. Big hungry black crows squawk in the shadows, looking for bloody morsels. And shark fins plop with regularity into small yellow plastic baskets. The baskets fill up fast, are then weighed, and finally carried to a nearby truck, where a man with a notepad strikes a deal. At 9.30am, it's all over for another day. Fork lift trucks scoop up tons of limbless carcasses, then dump them into a high-sided truck. The process is a brutal sight to behold, and not for the faint-hearted. The fishing port of Kesen-numa City is located in Miyagi Prefecture in North East Japan, and is the country's only port dedicated to catching sharks. Over two days in early July 2010, I saw 119 tons of blue shark (Prionace glaucaof), ten tons of salmon shark (Lamna ditropis), and three tons of short fin mako shark (Isurus oxyrinchus) landed on the dock at Kesen-numa. Not to mention several tons of endangered bluefin tuna, (Thunnus thynnus), but that's a whole other story. Taking government transparency to another level, landed shark tonnage numbers are provided daily by the port of Kesen-numa's Japanese only website, which is publicly, (and apparently unashamedly), available. According to the most recent data available, a Kesen-numa Municipal Fisheries report, the gross tonnage of blue sharks landed in the small fishing port dropped from 9,722 tons in 2007 to 8,200 tons in 2008, a decline of 18.6%. Only a small portion of shark fin prepared in Kesen-numa is destined for export, mostly to Hong Kong and Shanghai, where Japanese shark fin is seen as a premium brand by the new wealthy elite of China. For wealthy Chinese, shark fin from Kesen-numa is seen as a premium, or luxury, brand. Mr Hatakeyama, 45, a shark fin processor from Kesen-numa, said, "Quite a bit of shark fin is sent to Shanghai from here as there are many rich people there. Our shark fin here can command higher prices than Chinese shark fin sourced from elsewhere in Asia, the Middle East or Africa. Even though the Chinese have their own shark fin, they prefer Japanese brands". Given the delicacy's roots, this is hardly surprising, but what is more unexpected is that the majority of shark fin processed in Kesen-numa is for domestic consumption as shark fin soup at Chinese restaurants and expensive hotels in Japan. Like in China, shark fin soup is common place at weddings, company banquets and all sorts of other special occasions where the paying host wants to show off their wealth. And much of the shark fin produced at small food factories dotted around the city ends up bound for Chinese restaurants in Japan, of which there are many. The rest is sold to hotels to include on their menus for newly weds and for corporate banquets. In olden times, shark fin was sometimes used as a substitute for gold when Japanese merchants traded with China. Understandably, and for this same reason, the exact location for fin drying in Japan remains a closely guarded secret. And a significant amount is shipped to China for sun-drying, although the exact drying location in China is an even bigger secret. These days, the port of Kesen-numa feels like a town down on it's luck. Once thriving, today there is a sense of decay in the air. Overgrown and rusty. Similarly, attitudes have yet to move with the times. As public sentiment slowly turns against shark fin soup in Hong Kong, what was once an ancient tradition in this forgotten corner of Japan, is, according to conservationists, wreaking havoc on shark populations worldwide. Small fishing boats used catch sharks as part of the city's ancient tradition. But this tradition, coupled with modern fishing methods like the advent of strong and long fishing lines, and boats that can go further and stay out of port for longer, is a recipe for disaster for the sharks. According to the Japan Fisheries Agency, the nation's national shark fin catch nearly halved since the late 1960's. In 1969, the total number of sharks caught and landed in Japan was around 65,000 tons. Last year's total was around 35,000 tons, and Kesen-numa accounts for aro