Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had an enjoyable time. Apologies for the scary picture, I hope it hasn’t put you off your food.
As new year is meant to be a time for new beginnings, resolutions and making positive decisions, it’s time to look at what you want to accomplish photographically in 2013 and now while the weather is awful, it’s a good time to do some planning.
For me, 2013 is about getting my motivation back to go out and take pictures. It’s all to easy to stay in the warm and look at lots of photography on the internet and read lots (carry on reading this site of course), I fell into that trap in 2012. It really hit home when I was looking through my photography library in Adobe Lightroom and looking at how many pictures I had taken over the last few years. In 2009 I took over 10000 pictures in the year, compare that to 2012 and it was about 15% of that, only about 1500 pictures. That is embarrassing and really made me think about getting back out there and actually using all this expensive equipment I have.
So how am I going to rectify this poor show? Well, the first thing I want to do is to meet up with other photographers on evenings or day trips with the intent of taking pictures. I’ve realised that I don’t enjoy photography on my own. Having moved to a new area in the last 6 months, I wanted to get out and explore the area a bit too.
Ok, so what have I done about it? Well, I have another web site about photography which is a forum for users of Sony cameras (the brand that I use), so I posted on there asking if there was anyone in the area that wanted to come along on a day out one weekend. I’ve had a few replies so we are organising the day out soon. Great stuff!
I have also been to my local camera club to see what that’s like. Fortunately it looks like a good little club so I’ll be joining up and going along to the meetings. Now, camera clubs aren’t for everyone but the regular competitions force you into getting new pictures and the people there are great for bouncing ideas around or helping out if you have a question or two.
I’ve also agreed to shoot a wedding in the Spring. That’s a bit scary but it’s going to be a challenge and will take me out of my comfort zone, but I’m looking forward to it.
So that’s where I’m up to so far. I haven’t actually taken many pictures yet but I have the plans in place and I’m looking forward to them.
So now it’s your turn. What are you planning for 2013 to further your photography enjoyment?
Oh, and if there are any of you based near the North West of England, maybe we can organise a group day out sometime soon too!