I need to revive my photography. 2024 started well but, for very good reasons, I lost my focus and ultimately, I lost my way. The progress I had made and the goals I had set for my photography vanished along with my motivation.

Now the end of 2024 is not too far away. It’s this time of year when you can’t help but take stock and think about the future. I stopped believing that everything changes just because it’s January 1st a long time ago but over the last few months I have reached a point where my minor and intermediate goals haven’t had any attention. This has created a void which I now have the opportunity to fill. Whilst I wont be starting completely from scratch it’s a chance to change the old pattern and focus on some bigger ideas.

So from a dead stop I need to restart and go forward without returning to my old routines.

So these are my thoughts. My social media needs to be streamlined. I peaked at four Instagram accounts all of which are still active. I did this when I believed (wrongly) that each account needed to be niche specific. All that happened was that it was very hard work. It made no difference whatsoever to my following.

I started to close them earlier this year but stalled as I withdrew. Then had a change of heart in amongst everything else. But now I need to get back to 2 and make a giant leap by bringing my Wedding output onto my main page. Then I need to get it all on one feed. Combined with my lack of engagement over the last 12 months or so and the shape of instagram now I think it’s the right thing to do. I’d quite like to be better and Facebook as well and I need to grasp that nettle. I don’t much like the tone of Facebook. I find so much negativity but thats probably because I am in all the wrong places.

I then need to do the opposite with my website which I have made very specific to my Wedding Work and which I now want to encompass all of my Photographic goals.

These are outputs though and Its the Inputs where I have the biggest challenge. I really want to embrace You Tube and create content there. I want to create the sort of content that I cant find for myself. Hard to explain that and not sure if it’s within by ability but I won’t know unless I try. The thing is I want it to complement my Photography and not become an output in its own right and distract me from Taking Pictures. Given the steep learning curve this is likely and was what I experienced when I had a little dabble. Nevertheless I believe I can do it so thats a biggy. And I want to combine that with writing more Blog Posts. “Yeah Right” goes this little voice in my head. “You’ve wanted to do that forever”

And I desperately need some new projects to work on. This is arguably the hardest one to sort out. I’m not going to stop photographing the subjects that interest and exciting to me. So I need to figure out how I can have a different approach while still engaging with the things I love.

At the very start of 2024. I had an opportunity to exhibit some prints of my work for the first time. This was very exciting and the feedback that I got was amazing. Soon after this life events began impacting my time and affecting my mood and my desire to get out and create. That hasn’t entirely gone away. Quite the Contrary. You cannot undo Loss. But The loss of my love of photography does not have to be permanent. Now it’s time to regain the momentum I had . Let’s see what happens.

Photo:

Cambridge. 7 January 2024. Shot on iphone 12