Aside from the usual goals for the new year relating to health and fitness and things like that I want to set some new goals for my photography. That’s what this post is about.

A little over a year ago I finished a 365 project using my point and shoot camera. I took a photograph a day for an entire year. This was a great project, although at times demanding. It required that I have my camera with my virtually all the time, and it forced me to be constantly alert to the photographic possibilities inherent in whatever I was doing at the time. I would say I learned a lot in that year. I certainly learned how to get more out of my little p&s than just leaving it on auto. I was so excited about photography that I requested for Christmas that year a DSLR and got it. In the year since I’ve done a lot of good things with that DSLR, but I don’t know that I’ve committed as much time and energy into pushing myself photographically speaking as I could have.

So this year I want to do just that, push myself. I don’t want to do another 365. There were times when just getting a picture, any picture, became the goal, as opposed to getting a good picture. And there might have been a little bit of burnout. But I do want to make a serious effort to try to have my camera with me more than I did the past year. This is not so easy of a thing with a DSLR. It’s a much bulkier camera than the p&s, and I don’t want to leave it in the car on hot summer days while I’m in the office working, so there’s something to figure out there, but I’m thinking about ideas for handling that.

I also want to re-think how I’ve been going about sharing my photographs. I’ve pretty much been sharing exclusively on Flickr, which has been great. But I want to bring the blog back into the action. Recently it’s merely been another place that my mobile iPhone photographs have been being cross-posted, but I’ve got a whole other site for that already which you can find by looking at the menu at the top of this page. I think I’ll turn off that cross-posting, since those photos already get enough attention. I want to bring more attention to the ones that I’m taking with the better camera, and that I’m ostensibly spending more time and effort taking and editing.

You may see some changes around here, and it’s possible I might end up creating another spin-off site just for my photography. We’ll see. It won’t all happen overnight. But do expect to stop seeing the iPhone photos here, and to start seeing more of the kinds of things I’ve been posting to Flickr over here.

Another thing I think I’ll start doing is asking for more feedback. I want opinions about what people like, and what they think I could have done differently or better. This is all part of the process of trying to learn. It doesn’t mean I’ll always agree with the opinions of others, but I do want to be challenged on my own preconceptions. If I want to grow as a photographer I need to be pushed.

Post-processing (editing) is the other big area where I really want to challenge myself. I don’t expect I’ll ever be one of the photographers who spends tons of time in photo-editing software cloning things or creating crazy visual effects. It’s not where my primary interest is. But there is plenty for me to learn in that arena nonetheless. I’ve got some good software, Aperture and Pixelmator, that I want to spend more time experimenting and learning in. I want to have a better idea when I’m taking a picture of what I think I can do with it after I’ve taken it; pre-visualizing the potential.

And finally, I want to talk about what I did with a picture and why I did it. So sometimes I might share before and after photos, and discuss the crop I chose, or the adjustments I made. It’s also part of the learning process, trying to document my own decision making process.

I hope you, my readers, will continue to follow along, and maybe even participate in my efforts to improve myself as a photographer. This isn’t about making money, at least not at this point. It’s about learning, challenging, exploring and trying to see the world around me and share it with you in exciting and creative ways. I hope you enjoy. Thanks!