I am thrilled to share the final photo of my 52 Project. I had been wanting to re-create my Week 1 sleeping shot all year long, but I moved to a new place that was set up differently, and I also wasn’t even sure I could physically re-create it. I really lucked out on that first self-timer self portrait. Since I was in Los Angeles with my family for the holidays, it was the perfect opportunity to do a shoot with my very good friend Charlene Laino who modeled for me a number of times five years ago. I really am lucky to have so many wonderful friends who know how to move well! She was an incredibly good sport and jumped in the sleeping position over 200 times. We got the shot that I envisioned, but during a break from all the horizontal jumping, what you see above happened. This says, what words cannot, exactly how I feel now that I have successfully pushed through 2010 to create, edit, and publish a new motion-based image every week. And while I was editing this shot, Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” kept playing in my head.

To all of you who have liked, favorited and commented on one of my images online and/or in person, thank you. Having an audience helped me stick with it and encouraged me to keep going when I hit a slump (or two or three) and wondered what other ways there are to photograph weightlessness.

Many more thank you’s are in order for everyone who defied gravity for this project and for those who helped and inspired me along the way. I will get to those in another post along with my third annual end-of-the-year video montage and a behind the scenes time-lapse video of this final week’s photo shoot.

A fond farewell, 2010!