Pic Of The Day...Kind Of

About five and a half years ago I started posting a picture on this blog, on Facebook, and on Google + every day.

Every single day.

Of course, when you post a picture every day, that means you need to take at least one photo every day. Some day's I've taken dozens of photos--some days only one. Needless to say, I've filled up computers and back up drives with pictures.

Even if you don't think you'll make rules when you start out doing something like this, rules creep into the process. I ended up making some rules with my Pic Of The Day. It had to be a picture that I took on the day I posted it on social media. And that picture had to be posted before midnight in whatever time zone I was in (I think in the past five and a half years, I've only changed from the Mountain Time Zone to the Pacific Time Zone, and I've only done that once...). Sure, I could use a picture I took a day, a week, or even a year earlier. If it was something like a sunset, no one might ever know the picture wasn't taken on the day it was posted, but I'd know.

So, the other night my wife and I sat out on our porch while an electrical storm blew into the valley. I set up my camera on a tripod and took several time-lapsed photos. Sometimes the shutter would close just before another brilliant lightning strike would hit miles away and I'd miss the shot.

But, I did get one. It wasn't as amazing as the actual lightning bolt, but I'll take it. After I caught the picture, I wondered which picture to use as my Pic Of The Day. I had three I could have chosen. That happens sometimes. Usually, it's not a big deal. That night I didn't use the picture of lightning that I caught.

But I really wanted to use that picture as a Pic Of The Day, so I cheated just a little. I brought up the lightning picture on my camera's little LED screen and I took a picture of that. It followed my rules--I took that picture on that day (even though the original picture was taken a couple of days before...) and I posted it before midnight.

Looks like I've found a loophole.