I think your project was also easier because of how you approached it, not just the fact that you did the same thing each day. When you say "hey can you take a picture with me for a project" you're giving people a reason for the request and they have this sort of understanding. They may still wonder what the project is and think it's weird but that small detail makes all the difference to me. Now if you were to approach people and say "Can I take a picture with you?" and leave it at that then I'm willing to bet the "no" rate would go up, it would be more challenging, and maybe the tolerance to rejection would be a bit better.
I don't want to sound like I'm knocking your method because I'm not and lord knows I'm in need of some serious rejection therapy too and haven't done anything close to what you did. I think that's a pretty cool project and I might try it except I won't tell people why I'm asking the question.
> "They may still wonder what the project is and think it's weird but that small detail makes all the difference to me."
It absolutely does. That said, the guy in the article could also very much say something like "I have a personal project where I make an outlandish request every day" and probably gotten more "yes"es.
It's all in the intent - I wasn't out there strictly to get rejected, I was out there to take some cool pictures for a project, and learn a few things about cold-approaching people and handling failure. It wasn't intended as rejection therapy, though it did seem like that in the beginning ;)
I don't want to sound like I'm knocking your method because I'm not and lord knows I'm in need of some serious rejection therapy too and haven't done anything close to what you did. I think that's a pretty cool project and I might try it except I won't tell people why I'm asking the question.