My plans for 2022

The road to success is to move forward in the pursuit of perfection.

I have never been a huge supporter of new year resolutions or the forward planning of life changing events. Instead I have always given myself short terms goals and a semi structured plan to work within. I don’t beat myself up if plans don’t follow the road I had set out and I certainly don’t measure success or failure by plans made.

With this in mind I have set our some goals for 2022, goals that will hopefully enable me to improve my photography or at very least move forward in my learning journey. The plans set out below are by no means set out in any order but simply a record of what I would like to achieve or learn at some point over the next 12 months.

12 Significant images

I really do see this project as a way to improve my photography, Ansel Adams said if a photographer can create 12 images of significance in any one year, that, that would be a good crop and so that is my goal. Images will come from all different aspects of photography with the one general goal of being in my opinion significant.

What is a significant image in my opinion? An image that provokes an emotion in either the photographer or their audience, the image should be one that the photographer would be happy to display in their portfolio and not as a part of a set but a stand alone image either in full colour or monochrome.

Each month potential images will be posted on my dedicated page, all images will be displayed by November?December with the final 12 images displayed by January 1st 2023

The Lake District National Park

I am in the fortunate position to have the full Lake District an hours drive away and to me it seems ridiculous that I have not spent so much time exploring the area with my camera. My medical issues prevent me from any “long” hikes but I can certainly enjoy smaller hikes with a slow ascent up some of the famous fells. I have taken the decision to make the most of what is on my doorstep this year and to make the sacrifices required to visit Cumbria more often and to make some breathtaking landscape images.

You can look forward to images of mountains, tarns, waterfalls, lakes and rocky crags in the very near future again in the hope I can improve what appears to be my favourite genre of photography.

Street Photography

I have seen fantastic images from this genre of photography and yet it is one I have not really looked into and so this year I intend to get out there into a town or city near you, put myself out of my comfort zone and create some amazing images. In my day to day job I deal primarily with members of the public and so I have the confidence to approach strangers in the hope to catch some great images.

My learning of the genre will come mostly from YouTube, there are some fantastic street photographer that post regular on the topic, I also intend on taking part in one or two street photography workshops in the hope of hitting the road running

Create A Portfolio

`To date I don’t have a portfolio so to speak, of course I have a selection of images I display on social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. However in my opinion a portfolio is a record of your very best images, images you would feel proud to display to any potential client or company potentially wanting to hire your services.

This year I intend to look through my images which is quite a daunting task, just recently I looked back over some of my favourite images and thought to myself “oh dear” that for me is a sign of improvement, however I must begin to catalogue my images better and begin to put together a portfolio of work. I am quite sure the images in my portfolio will change from time to time as I improve or learn new skills.

Conclusion

I have much to do this year or at very least a plan to do many things this year, some I am certain I will complete or achieve and some I may not, what I do know is it will be fun trying to stick to this plan and my photography will become all the better for it. I invite you all to continue to be a very big art of my progress by offering constructive critique of my work and all things being well maybe even a little praise for some good work.

All the is left for me to say is good luck with your own plans for 2022, I wish you every success in whatever you plan to achieve.