So ends 2011: a review of this past year’s goals

4 CommentsTuesday • December 20, 2011 • by Matthew Connors

The year is drawing to a close, which means – unless I accomplish an awful lot in the next few weeks – that I have not fully met all of my goals of 2011. In truth, many things have remained the same since my mid-point update. The silver lining is that, as usually happens in life, many things I hadn’t planned on or expected occurred to me this year that I am both grateful for and excited about.

First, lets review my success rate of meeting my intended goals laid out at year’s start. Actually, let’s look from the mid-point review.

Get Out More with the Camera

I still do not feel that I have met this goal very well. Here’s the thing, I have several reasons, excuses, and explanations as to why, but none will be original or unheard before. Naturally, a lack of time is the largest limiting factor, but also the most inexcusable reason: It comes down to making the time. More at the heart of it is that I lack a purpose for getting out. I have reached a point (reasonable or unreasonable) that if I don’t have a project or purpose behind shooting, I lack motivation. If I don’t have an outlet for my work besides web-posting or a topic for a blog post, I don’t see a reason for the photos.

Well, that may be a little too rigid. I still enjoy playing with the camera, toying around with flash modifiers, attempting to produce imagined results, but I also find myself wondering, for example, why I should go produce landscape images when so many others produce far better ones; why take the time trying to catch a macro of that flying bee when so many better insect macros are produced? What will I do with those images if I did go out and produce them? I’m not arguing that my reasoning is sound, but that is how my thought processs is running of late.

Meet-ups and Collaborations

Since mid-summer (6-month point of my yearly goals) I haven’t had the opportunity to meet-up anymore with fellow photographers. That’s a disappointment as I really enjoy the fellowship and exchanges that I have when with other photographers.

No collaborative projects in which I produced any work really came to fruition for me in 2011. There was some talk of joint projects with other photographers, but nothing developed. I do however count my involvement in Rear Curtain as a collaborative project. My interactions with other photographers and their work via Rear Curtain has been a fantastic and inspirational learning experience. It has exposed me to people and work – most importantly the development of that work – that I wouldn’t have had access to otherwise.

Publish More

Exciting news here! I am now a print-published photographer. My story Disconnect was published in Rear Curtain Issue 1. There really is nothing like seeing your work in print, holding it in your hands, flicking through the pages with your thumb. Full disclosure: I am Associate Editor for Rear Curtain. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that there was a part of me that suspected my position with RC may have helped push my story into print. The suspicion was based more on my insecurity than fact: in actuality, favoritism is not something practiced with the RC staff.

My insecurities have been alleviated, however. I have been both humbled and encouraged by the response to Disconnect. I have received compliments and notes from photographers I greatly respect and from photographers I never imagined would notice my work which have given me confidence that Disconnect is a strong photo-essay and that it belongs with the other work we publish on RC. Thanks to all of you.

While Disconnect’s publication was very exciting for me, I’ve also been publishing more work on the web. The problem I began to run into was that I was spreading myself across far too many sites and outlets, an easily accomplished thing in today’s over-saturated social media and photo-sharing environment. For various reasons I have not been interested in photo-sharing sites such as Flickr or 500px for some time now. I do find myself sharing pictures via Twitter for amusement. I also have this blog on which I share images and thoughts. What’s new though? In the past 6 months I have begun 2 Tumblr sites. One, that I post random musings and images, is HERE. Nothing earth-shattering there, but fun.

I have also begun a series about my youngest daughter and our dog, inventively titled A Girl and Her Pup HERE. This has functioned well as a creative outlet for me and has been helpful in keeping my creativity and imagination active. Several people have let me know how much they are enjoying the series. Thank you.

Play with Lighting More

I am still using and learning light at about the same level as 6 months ago, which is to say using it occasionally; mostly playing and practicing. I have not felt completely comfortable enough with lighting to use it in portrait work yet, although I have set up a shoot through umbrella to just blast a room and lighten the scene up. I do play with some modifiers and settings much more when shooting family. The key here is to find a sense of competence and confidence to use light as a modifier for paid work without thinking I’m looking incompetent, while still keeping a feeling of fun and experimentation that clients will respect.

All in all, I still see the power that light can play in setting a mood in an image and also in helping me reach my concepts for images more, I just need to use it and integrate it more until some of the knowledge becomes instinctual.

Attend a Workshop

Not much new in the last 6 months that I can add here. Since ART 2011 I have not attended any other workshops. The cost of many workshops is certainly prohibitive for me at this point, but more so it is the topics and what is offered at many workshops that doesn’t appeal to me for the price. As I said in my mid-point review, I still believe a course in processing or web-development would serve me best. That said, I would like to make it to ART 2012 because of it’s reasonable price, the people I met at the ART 2011, and the content that builds upon ART 2011’s workshop topics.

Portraiture Work

Ok, this is really where I’d hoped to excel and build a good foundation over the past year. I don’t feel that I’ve done that. I did have several jobs this past year, but since early fall work has stopped. I could blame this on the economy, people spending on holiday’s instead, or other factors, and those are partly at fault I’m sure. But I’m aware that I am to blame too. I should have prepared a set of holiday packages (christmas card sessions), or discounted my price over this season. I realize that I need to promote my business more, to incentivize my past clients to return to me and also to refer my business to others. Overall, I need a lot of work here; a whole rework of how I’ve been doing things.

Wrap-up

So there it is. Twelve months later and I’ve laid out my accomplishments, and, I suppose, my failures. I wish I could say I feel satisfied with my progress, but, overall, I feel like I have been stuck in a rut. I have a bunch of excuses, crutches, and reasoning that I could plead, but none would be original or really acceptable. Many of them derive from fear, uncertainty, and timidness. Lots to review and rework as I ring in 2012.

Happy Holidays to you all. Thanks for all the support, interest, and inspiration you’ve given me in 2011.

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Tagged with: Monochrome, Photo Project, Photography, Photography tips, Thoughts