Every year I write about my New Year’s Photography resolutions. I’ll remind readers they aren’t only resolutions, but things I’d been thinking about for some time. This year, as last, I’ll also call them my photography goals as well as my New Year’s resolutions for the year to come.
This year I kept the number at six and mixed them into no real order. Too many goals don’t seem to work for me. However, I included five more I found on the Internet for new photographers.
My first resolution is an easy one that I recommend to all serious photographers. The resolution is to get together with other photographers. Collaborate with like-minded enthusiasts, plan an outing or just get together for refreshments and talk at some local spot.
My second resolution is to plan several photographer vacations this year. I’ll be sure to make them about photography, not those rushing trips where one just grabs a picture now and then on a tiny point and shoot camera. These will be the kind of excursions that allow me look at the world in new ways and inspire me to use the equipment, knowledge, and talents I have.
My third resolution is to continue my ongoing, and seemly never-ending quest to organize my old photographic slides. I make this resolution every year.
My fourth resolution is to upgrade my computer, well actually, to purchase a new computer. Gosh, I’d do almost anything to skip this one, but I suppose I must be resolute in this resolution.
My fifth resolution is to add a lens this year. Not that I really require anything, but there are a couple that are intriguing. Nevertheless, because I prefer to purchase used equipment, I am always on the look out for bargains that fit the kind of photography I do.
My sixth resolution is to attend a photographic workshop. The subject doesn’t really matter; I always learn something whether it’s from the leader or from my classmates. I regularly buy books on different photographic subjects and I am an avid reader of many online bloggers and teachers, but the experience of being part of a class offers so much more.
I decided to search for other photographer’s New Year Resolutions and found a list by www.photoguides.net I changed their order and selected five that I think will benefit those readers new to this exciting medium in the year to come.
Their first New Year’s resolution is to, “Use filters”.
The second resolution, “Never use Auto mode” I do like that, but I think I would change it to “learn when and where to use Auto modes”, because I look at cameras and their functions as multipurpose tools.
The third resolution, “Shoot more in RAW” surprises me. Not the resolution, but that any serious photographer, even a beginner, wouldn’t prefer RAW.
The fourth, “Take control of your flash” might just be my favourite resolution. Anyone familiar with my photography knows how much I like flash.
For the fifth and last resolution for 2014. I’ll just smile and nod my head, “Stop the car”.
I am sure readers will make their own resolutions for the year we have just begun. What could they be? I can only imagine. Let me know.
I wish you and yours the best in the New Year.
My website is at www.enmanscamera.com
Enmanscamera's Blog - Kamloops 
Excellent resolutions. I will have to share these with my photographer girlfriend!
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Ha..Good for you….Now I got ya in trouble…She’s gonna want to do ’em all.
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Wow those are great ones! I think I’ll take a few for myself!
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Ok, which ones?
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Every ‘serious’ photographer says that you have to shoot in RAW and otherwise ‘you’re not a professional’.
I shoot in Jpeg. Because my metering has to be good if not perfect.
In RAW every idiot with a good program on his Mac
(It has to be a Mac otherwise.. ) can make a acceptional image afterwards.
The professionality of a photographer lies in the art and the knowledge of photography. In my honest opinion you are a profi when your pictures are Photo’s. Straight from camera. Because you know what you are doing, you know the limits, the possibillities and the end-product up-front in your head.
Best wishes to you and your readers.
Han.
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I really appreciate your taking the time to give me your opinion. And I expect you and I would have a great time shooting together and discussing personal points of view.
I also like that you included your opinion that, “metering has to be good if not perfect” in a world filled with photographers that have no idea what a meter even is.
To post-process or not to post-process has been an argument ever since I have been doing photography back in the 1970s when I was first hired as a photographer for the Los Angeles Office of Education. It used to be called working in the dark room.
I could easily change your words about the computer to special chemicals or expensive enlargers.
I remember being accused of being unfair at a local exhibition because I used exotic photographic papers and mixed my own chemicals. Mac computers? Gosh, My 4×5 cold light enlarger was more expensive than the newest Mac. And the Dichroic-head Lietz 35mm enlarger took a while to save up for also.
At that time I would have made basically the same statement regarding those that used labs or Polaroid and claimed straight from the camera was the only true photography.
The beauty of this exciting medium is there is no one what to capture an image. There is no one thought process, one social group or even one technology.
Photography, to me, is as it always has been. Once I used a creative medium that once demanded hours to make a print in a smelly, almost toxic, darkened room. Now it includes computer programs.
I would never limit the possibilities by using one lens or one camera. And although a JPG is certainly as sharp and full of color information and as a RAW image. I do believe that RAW offers more opportunity.
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Oh, and about filters and the lack of them in my equipment..
I will write later.. Let me say this, a filter is the most costly piece of glass you can buy. Look at the price of the lens itself en imagine how much delicate glass is in there for that price.. And then look at that tiny flat piece that cost you about 80 bucks..
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Filters.. Well said Han. I appreciate that you took the time to comment on what many think are insignificant purchases.
Most that I come in contact with feel they are only about protection. That can be true, but I think a lens hood might offer more protection when a lens is dropped. I use filters like any other tool. Polarizers, Neutral density and ND grads allow more control over the initial capture.
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