Anya Garrett is an actor, director, producer and photographer. Her acting work was recently highlighted in a spoof of the movie Juno called "Jewno" with J.K. Simmons and "The Hope" with the great Jon Benjamin.
Her love of capturing images has made her a denizen of comedy and music shows, frequenting places like the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater and the MTV studios.
She just released a book called 365(6) that documents her ambitious goal of taking self portraits every day from April 27th, 2007 to April 28, 2008.
What inspired you do to this project?
I was inspired by so many other 365 Days projects - the flickr group currently has over 13,000 members doing the same basic premise. My individual goal was self-portraits that looked incredibly different from each other - not to show time lapse, but to experiment within the range of portraiture as much as I could.
What kind of camera did you use?
By and large, I shot on a Canon Digital Rebel xTi DSLR, but also - since i was going for variety, sometimes it was a Polaroid, or a scanner, or a friend's digital camera that i borrowed, and once it was the photobooth at MTV studios.
Were there days you almost missed taking photos?
Several of the days within the year, my photo was taken shortly before midnight (as that was always my deadline), and for a week in the middle of the year, the photos piled up before I uploaded them - but I was fairly committed to making the project part of my daily "work"...
What was your favorite day for photos?
I have a couple of "favorite days" from the year, where I don't particularly love the photo. But great days that had great photos to correspond - these would probably be my top three: 144/365 here, 350/365 here and 363/365 here.
What was your worst day?
Two of the very worst days (for personal reasons) out of the entire year produced two of my favorite images from the entire project. In both instances (one work-related and one relationship-related), I'm physically doing exactly what I wanted to do that day - 117/365 here and 344/365 here.
What was your most frustrating day?
Most frustrating day? It would have to be Day 315, when I discovered that my work was been stolen in bulk and redistributed as someone else's. It was my Network moment (as in, I was mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore). It's my only image that has been highly censored on Flickr, though, because of how massive the reaction was. It's in it's original form in the book, however - 315/365 here.
What else inspires you?
I get inspiration from everyone and everything in my life. That maybe sounds like a cheesy non-answer answer, but i really do... and I have a pretty decent memory for details that inspire me.
What are you reading right now?
I just finished reading Larry Willmore's book "I'd Rather We Got Casinos", and am about to start Jack Handey's "What I'd Say to The Martians".. they were both gifted to me in a swag bag from the ECNY Awards.
Who are you listening to right now?
I can't stop listening to Arthur Lewis' EP "If We Were." His voice is amazing.
"365(6)" can be purchased at blurb.com.
