2015; What Do I Want To Do With My Photography This Year?

Bald Eagle, Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia (click to enlarge)
A difficult image to successfully make as the eagle was too far away for the longest
lens that I had, which required too much cropping as well as being 3/4 backlit from the left.
Olympus E-M1 w/Olympus 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 lens + Olympus 1.4x tele-converter @ 566mm (~e)
ISO 800, 1/1000th sec. @ f/8; Induro 414 tripod

Another year has passed and a new year has begun.  Beside looking back at what I accomplished photographically and overall assessing my photography, I have to look forward and set some goals for the upcoming year.  I will be writing about my last year in photography in the very near future.

What do I want to photographically do this year?  As of right now, I know I want to take more shorter photographic excursions.  I normally take at least two three-week road trips, but also I want to take more shorter ones.  By shorter, I mean anywhere from one day to four days.  I'll like to get back to more often exploring closer to home. I used to drive all over Virginia exploring the countryside, back roads, small towns, etc., but haven't done that in a number of years.  In other words, just wander around my home state a bit more.

Also, I want to get back and make some additional steam engine images.  I used to spend a lot of time chasing steam engines around the country and I loved doing it.  I miss hearing what is often called "a living machine."  The sound of the cylinders chugging, the escape of steam, the whistle, the smell and the sounds of steam locomotives is like honey to this bee.  This year, I will find some running steam engines and make some portraits and detailed studies of steam locomotives and the men or women who work on them. This type of photography can be very visually impacting, especially in black and white.

I want to adopt a project—or continue a past project that had been left by the wayside.  I had created a project some years ago and was very excited about it.  I jumped right in and started.  The project required me to drive extensively around Virginia.  Just after I started it, fuel prices soared.  I gave up due to additional expense.  I may start up on that project again.  If I do, I'll write about the project and what I hope to accomplish and document with it.

One last thing.  I want to do something different this year.  I don't know what yet.  Maybe take on a new type of photography.  Maybe photograph in black and white only.  Maybe I'll spend time creating macro images or street images or celestial images.  Or, maybe I'll look at adopting some new gear and change formats or systems or brands.  Maybe I'll use only prime lenses this year.  I guess I'm looking for something to provide some additional stimulation and enthusiasm in my photographs for this year.  Learning, growing, changing, challenging oneself is a certain recipe to stimulation and enthusiasm.  I've not yet figured it out yet, and I will let you know when I do.

These are ambitious statements.  I'm feeling pretty bold setting forth such a wide variety of goals that I may not be able to accomplish.  But the point is that I put some thought into where I want my photography to go this year and what I want to accomplish.  That is always better than aimlessly going forward not knowing where one may end up.

So, preliminarily, I have some things I want to accomplish photographically.  As I narrow the scope of my thoughts, I'll set goals, timelines and objectives so I can realistically achieve my goals.  Not a bad idea to set goals and develop a roadmap on how to get where you want to go.  Otherwise, you may not know where you will end up!

Thanks for looking.  Enjoy!

Dennis Mook

Many of my images can be found at www.dennismook.com.  Please pay it a visit.  I add new images regularly.  Thank you.


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