This is something that I come back to every now and again to review where I am in my photographic journey. Sometimes life gets in the way and I lose a little bit of interest. This helps me get back on track and gives me a bit of focus again.
I often suffer from a problem that I call ideas overload (although I'm sure there is an actual technical term for this). It often happens when I become really interested in something and my mind starts buzzing with lots of ideas about it and what I want to achieve (in recent years this is typically photography-related). The trouble is, it then often goes all wrong. Sometimes I have so many ideas that I can't decide what to do, then lose focus and end up doing very little instead. Another outcome is that there just isn't enough time in the week to concentrate on the work, so again little is achieved and worse, it makes me grumpy and depressed.
Since buying my new camera (and phone) my output has drastically increased, making it even more important to keep on top of processing all the new photos and not getting too far behind. With all the things I want to do beyond just taking photos, I have decided to come up with a set of short term, medium term and long term objectives. What I am trying to do is stay focussed on only a small subset of all the things I want to achieve, not wasting time on things that can wait a few days, weeks or months. I don't want to be thinking about this again in, say, 12 months' time and realise that I've not moved forward in any way apart from taking photos and posting a few on Instagram.
So here are my long term photographic goals, along with a brief description of what each means. I have a more detailed list with the individual tasks and targets which I'm not going to bore you with by publishing here. In any case, if anybody is inspired by this to do something similar, there will be no point copying the details, you will have to work out your own specific goals.
The goals are:
1. Stay Current
2. Build Audience
3. Learn Skills
4. Build Legacy
5. Become Go-To Person
2. Build Audience
3. Learn Skills
4. Build Legacy
5. Become Go-To Person
There is a deliberate order to this - 1 needs to be worked on almost every day, whereas 2, 3 and 4 need regular but not daily progress. 5 is the culmination of all the others and proof that they have been successful.
There is a theoretical (fantasy?) number 6 where I start earning money from photography and maybe change job, but is this is a very unlikely outcome even if the other five have been met. I’m certainly not going to aim for this, although it would be great if it happened.
So, in a bit more detail:
1 - Stay Current means doing something with my new photos (both from my main camera and iPhone) every day if possible. In other words, aim to have all my new photos copied, backed up and processed with the best ones posted online within 24 hours or 48 hours at the latest. Part of this includes improving my workflow to allow me to post something really quickly if it is time-sensitive.
2 - Build Audience means keep growing the number of people who can see and choose to see my photos. Currently this involves regular posting to Instagram and Facebook and encouraging people to visit my main Portfolio site (this one). But at time of writing, this is only a tiny number of people, so a) I need more family, friends and colleagues to be regular viewers, b) learn how to promote the photos better so they reach a wider audience, c) keep up a regular flow of new content, and d) keep improving the quality of the photographs. Which leads to no. 3.
3 - Learn Skills means at least a couple of things. Firstly, try to learn all the functions and options of my current kit so that a) I know exactly what it is capable of, b) how best to use it in every situation, and c) I can do this with either no or minimal reference to documentation. Secondly, I want to become expert in all the required software to process and post my photos. This objective is mainly here to help me take better photographs, but it has an added bonus that I can the pass on these skills to others. Which leads to no. 4.
4 - Build Legacy also means a couple of things. The primary purpose of this section is to create a long lasting collection of photos that family and beyond can enjoy for years to come. However, it has occurred to me that part of this legacy can include passing on some of the things that I have learned to other photographers. I might currently work in a school, but I'm not a qualified teacher - I'll have to find other ways of doing this.
Finally, what does 5- become the Go-To Person mean? Essentially, this means becoming well known enough for family, friends and work colleagues to start thinking of me when they want any kind of photography AND for me to have the confidence and ability to meet their expectations. Hopefully this will be a natural consequence of the first four main goals.
In conclusion, I am very aware that the above may sound a bit pretentious, pointless or geeky to many readers and I can almost hear some people say “don’t take it too seriously, they are only photos”. They may be right, but if it helps me drive my photography forward then it has done its job. I’ll revisit this in a year’s time and see if it did make a difference!
Martin Carrier
July 2021
July 2021