Picks from our California trip in May of 2022. Yosemite to Big Sur.
I’m pretty sure that every year for the past 10 years or so, in the weeks leading up to January 1, the exact same series of events have occurred. I go to my website. I see that I haven’t updated it in probably 9 months. I scroll back to January 1 and I see proclamations and goals set. I see a 365 project that at its most successful maybe made it 45 days. I delete it all with the intention of this year being THE year I commit. Well, this year is no different. And here we are with a fresh start again.
Why will this year be different? Well, based on past experiences there is no reason to think it will be. But that doesn’t make it so. Maybe this will be the year it all kicks into gear for me. I don’t have much reason to believe that but maybe there is one. Age. I’m turning 50 this year. And with that realization, I feel like my mind might be in a better place than it has been in the past. And when I say that I mean in terms of focus. I feel like pieces are slowly falling into place. Maybe finally starting to come together a bit. There is nothing specific I can’t point to here. Maybe it’s just a hundred small things, none of which were noticed at the time. I won’t go into detail here because I don’t know the answers. I’m just going to know it to be true with the hope of this knowing making it so.
What are the goals going forward you ask? Let’s start with the main goal. I want to build my brand as a photographer.
This is the first time I think I’ve stated any kind of goal like that out loud. Ok, that wasn’t so hard. Now that it’s out of the way, how? The first part is consistency. Will I post every day? Maybe not. But I would like to try. I will not see missing a few days as a failure. I will try to take a photo every day though but I don’t know if they will always be posted that day. The reason being is, I want a sizable percentage to be taken on film and same-day development/processing isn’t always an option. I will be developing almost all myself but still, this takes time and it won’t be every day that I have the resources (on vacation/busy with work/life) and time to develop and process a roll of film.
I want to make content I would feel bad about deleting.
I’ve yet to do that with words. In the past, it has been all too easy to start over because all the content I had was either jibberish or meh at best. I want to get better. Better will come with practice.
I want to have more confidence and put myself out there.
I see so many average or below average creators blindly self-promote. I put myself in this below average to average range so if they can do it, why can’t I?
So there we have it. Some very reasonable, in my opinion, goals. And a very reasonable path to achieving them.