No, I don’t mean New Year’s Resolutions that are “creative”.
Rather, I’m talking about making some New Year’s Resolutions regarding creative output.
I’ll be honest, this year hasn’t been my most productive, creatively. But, to be fair, I did get married and merge my life with another person’s and that did take a lot of time and no small amount of effort, for both of us. I think marriage is a pretty good excuse for not being as productively creative as one might hope, but that’s not going to cut it for the coming year. So, taking a little inspiration from DIYPhotography.net, I’m going to lay out some creative goals for the coming year and encourage you all to do the same.
- Take fewer photos, but take better ones and take them more regularly. Quality and quantity are not directly connected!
- Create a “Best Of” gallery of all my personal best photos from the year. (This is right from the DIYPhotography.net post, by the way.)
- Print at least two of my photographs to frame and hang on the wall. As digital photographers, we almost never print any more and I think we lose something as a result of that. When my wife and I were first dating and getting serious, she printed and framed one of my “super moon” shots and I still am moved by that and how powerful it was to have my work in a frame. (This is another resolution right from the DIYPhotography.net post.)
- Actively pursue opportunities to make more and more interesting photos.
- Take photographs with my “[amazon_link id=”B007FGZ1V0″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]big camera[/amazon_link]” at least once a week, even if I never process them completely or publish them in any way. Quantity may not be quality, but regular practice does make for a better photographer!
- Write some fiction at least once a month. Not all my creative endeavors are photographic! I used to write fiction all the time and now I almost never do at all, so even writing a paragraph of fiction once a month is more than I’ve done in a long, long time.
- Blog more, on this site, and others. I actually have two other blogs besides this one. One has been shut down for several years and my other, mostly professional, blog has hardly had any activity on it. I have several ideas for adding more content there, but I’ve had some psychological blocks to getting started. I really want to get over myself and just dive it. After all, starting is everything!
- Branch out into creative areas that I haven’t tried, or haven’t tried in a long time, like drawing and computer graphics. At one point, I was getting pretty good at Photoshop, but, like any skill, as I used it less and less, it got harder and harder. So, this year, I’d like to improve that somewhat. And, I really want to rediscover Blender, the free, open source 3D graphics program. It’s pretty awesome, and I’d like to be able to use it comfortably.
So, those are my creative resolutions for the year. I may not get to all of them this year, but, like any goal, I figure if I at least set them and work toward achieving them, I’ll be better off than where I am now, even if I’m not 100% successful.
Now, what are your creative resolutions for the year? How do you want to grow and expand your creative life in 2014?
