2008 wasn’t a good year for many of us, and certainly not for me. Personally there were several disasters, including the deaths of two family members, an older brother and a younger cousin. Photographically I had some minor disappointments, including the cancellation of a major show of my work which finally fell through after I thought all been agreed, and another invitation to show work at a major photo festival that came to nothing. And don’t let’s even think about money – financially I think most of the world had a bad year.
At the start of 2008 I made a list of things to do in the coming year and posted it, hoping it might encourage others to get themselves sorted out too. There were a total of ten points, and you can read more detail on them in the feature 2008 To Do List. Here are the bare headings:
1. Make better pictures
2. Get out more and take more pictures.
3. Check my camera settings more often when taking pictures
4. Always check for dirt on the lens
5. Edit my work more stringently
6. Sort out a proper back-up system
7. Make proper to-do lists
8. Really sort out my old street photography
9. Publish, at least on the Internet, my Docklands work from the 1980s
10.Get back to scanning my old work which is on deteriorating film negatives.
11. Rewrite as many as possible of my features and put them back on line.
12. make more money by selling photographs
My end of year report on these is a poor one. Even with some very liberal marking I can only claim around 3/10, and I don’t think I’ve quite completed even a single one, although I’ve made some progress on several.
Of course some – like ‘Make better pictures‘ – are things I hope I’ll never be satisfied with, and it would always be nice to make more money selling photographs, if only because it suggests a greater interest in the pictures. But there are a few I’d really like to be able to cross of the list. Still, I suppose there is an advantage in that I don’t need to bother with a new list for 2009.
I’m hoping for a better year than the past one, and send everyone my wishes for a happy and successful 2009.
