As it seems is a somewhat usual occurence, I find myself having taken a long break from writing on this blog without having throught about it. Alot has happened since my last post in August. I even had a post half written in early September that I just could not find a way to wrap up well, and then it fell by the wayside. I started this year talking about new photography goals for 2025, so it seemed like a good way to get back writing by covering what happened since my last post, wrap up the last year, and take a look at those goals I started the year with and reflect on how that turned out.
Photographing the milky way
One of the main goals of mine was to attempt to photograph the milky way. My entire life I have been fancinated by the stars. When I was a kid growing up on the farm, I would spend evenings just staring up at the sky and imagining what's up there. At this point in my life, after living in the city for over 20 years, I do the same any time I have the oppourtunity. Any attempt I had previously made to sphotography the starts had turned out quite poor. Admittedly that was because of a combination of not properly understanding the methods of shooting, not having the correct equipment, and not shooing at the correct time or location. So basically, I did everything wrong because I was just winging it without actually researching any of it. Luckily, earlier this year my wife's family farm became available to us as a backdrop and perfect place to shoot the night sky. It is only aout 30-40 minutes out of the city, but it is far enough out of the city that on a clear night, during a new moon, the sky lit up like I had not seen seen it since I was a kid on my own families farm. Once we were able to take advantage of the farm, we only had a couple of occasions where we could go out and shoot with any hope of success, and I'm happy to say that what is one of my favourite photos of the year came from that first night out there.
Sell prints
This was a big one of me. I have spent so many years enjoying the process of photography mostly for myself. I would share my photos on Instagram and get some good feedback here and there, but I was not sure how attempting to sell my work would pan out. I know the majority of my work is really different. It's toy photography, and alot of people haven't seen that or understand what I'm doing with it. So there was a lot of anxiety leading into it. I spent a lot of time and money getting myself set up for that first market in November, and I'm happy to say it payed off. Not only was that first market financially successful, but I got some wonderful feedback on my work. It was one thing to have friends and family, and faceless commenters on the internet say they liked something I made, but it was a whole other thing to have a stranger come up to my booth and get excited about a photograph I took and pay for a copy of it. I left that first sale both exhausted because it was a long day, but also excited and enthusiastic because it was such a positive experience. A few weeks later another oppourtunity at another market; this time over a whole weekend. There was a lot of anxiety about it, because I knew that there was going to be a very different crowd at this one. Unfortunately it did not work out as well as the first sale, but what I know that not all markets are going to work out, but I also recognize that at this particular market it seemed that no one did well....so at least it wasn't just me! There's plans for next year to keep on moving on and expand into a few different products, and themes for my work
Paid gigs
This is something that didn't exactly pan out the way I hoped it would. Not that I had huge plans for what I was going to do other than hopefully do some headshots, but we will see what happens next year. Something that did come up as a result of the first market I worked was the possibility of doing photos of minuatures for an upcoming tabletop game that another one of the vendors is developing. Something I did make happen was getting back volunteering with the Queen City Marathon after being away since 2018. That was a fun gig for a weekend, and the honorarium helped pay for a display calibrator. I think I'll be going back next year, and hopefully I can make some more oppourtunites happen.
So what are the plans for next year? I have some ideas which are expansions of what you've read about here, but there are some other more specific projects I want to want to try and focus on. I will be writing about that in my next post and plan on having that published in the first week of January. See you in the new year!
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