So this may be a few months late to announce seeing as it’s April, but hey, I’ll blog about it anyways: my top 5 goals for this year. What I want to accomplish, what I want to involve myself in, what I want to start.
1. Unite my Blog with my Website. – Check!
Finished this one already, and you are looking at the finished product. A unified view with a more constant voice. It bothered me for a long time that my blog and my portfolio were on two different sites. A bit of poking around and chatting with some photographer friends brought me to a site where I could create my own site including a blog, contact page, portfolio… everything! And it’s even mobile friendly. It’s all here and I can update it whenever I want. It took a few nights to work out the design, but I love what I have come up with.
2. Do more charity work.
From the very beginning, I have always been doing something through out the year that involved using my gifts for the Lord in giving back to the people who make what I do a business. Last year I got on board with the Friends for Life Foundation (www.fflf.ca) and their goals of raising money for the fight against Cystic Fibrosis (www.cysticfibrosis.ca) and in support of the Sick Kids Foundation (www.sickkids.ca). I encourage you to visit their sites!
Another way I want to volunteer my talents is to join a mission trip and document it. It’s a bit disappointing when you listen to a mission trip’s presentation of their work for people and the photos don’t really show the real story. They have to explain what is going on in the picture, or tell you about something you can’t see in the photo. I’d love to go and just document what’s going on. The feelings, look, the need for why we need to help those less fortunate. I’d like the teams to come back and have real presentation material that does the talking for them. Make the audience feel how they felt while serving. I do not have any interest in manipulating feelings with sad photos of sick children, although that is terrible, I just want to tell the real story to raise real funds to help people in need. I’ve talked about this for about a year now, but haven’t really found the perfect opportunity to jump into a project. If you know someone looking for someone like me, then please, let me know!
3. Become a certified pro.
I have started the process of being an accredited member of Professional Photographers of Canada (www.ppoc.ca). For me its about being recognized for my work by my peers, setting myself apart from the over saturated photography market, and being able to learn from those who strive for high standards in photography
4. Start a second “photography group” on facebook for semi-pro photographers.
That’s all I’ll say. Stay tuned for more.
5. Shoot outside of my comfort zone and have a more consistent look.
photo by Paul Zizka
I really want to start my own kind of shot. There’s the selfie, and then there’s the “Paul Zizka selfie” (www.zizka.ca) and the “Evel Knievel selfie” see above, (www.500px.com/kirill_opex). See below. Their own spin on a popular trend. I want to do that. Do something in my portraiture that defines it as a Jeremy James Portrait. Who knows if I’ll be able to nail this by the end of the year, but I may as well try!
photo by Kirill Oreshkin