Just A Man With A Camera

For my last post I wrote about some of my goals for 2025 and how that turned out, so I figured the logical thing to do is move onto what I hope is in store for 2026. At the beginning of 2025, I said that I'm not much for new years resolutions and that still stands, however I do like trying to set some yearly goals for myself to attempt to accomplish over the year. Whether it's making a certain big purchase, going on a particular trip, a fitness goal, or completing a project, I think that it's important for me to set some kind of goal. I also find that it's helpful for me to try set a deadline if I can.  That keeps me on track and ensures I don't just keep telling myself "I'll get to it eventually". Late in December, I bought myself a yearly planner, a nice new notebook, and a set of nice pens to help keep me on track, document my goals, and give me a visual aid for how the year is going which will hopefully help me stay focused. 

• Let's start off with a small one: During the summer of 2025, after dusting off my wife's old Minota SLR and finding a very good deal on a couple prime lenses, I started shooing a couple rolls of black and white film. One is completed and developed and the other is still in the camera. I haven't finished it yet, because early on in the first roll I made the concious decision that these rolls were going to be specifically dedicated to photographing decaying buildings in small prairie Canadian towns that I would come across during our summer road trips. I plan on continuing with this and making a little project out of the images.

• Continuing on with the subject of film, my wife purchased me an Fuji Instax Mini Evo for Christmas, and I would like to come up with a concept for a small project to use it for. Additionally, I want to just take it out with me regularly and have fun with it. Focus on good compositions but not overthing things like shutterspeed and aperature.  Just have fun with what's in my hand, infront of me, and make the most of each little tiny frame.
  

• Winter bird photogaphy. Nothing more to it than that really. I go for walks to photography birds and help me relax in every other season, but I tend to hibernate and avoid it in winter.  Even if I get out only a few times, I want to use it as a reason to get myself off the couce and be more active over the course of the winter.

• I want to get more shots of the milky way this year. Considering it was my first good attempt at doing so, I was really happy with my one milky way photo that I took this year.  That being said, I would like to keep improving and not just leave it at that.

• There are four markets that I hope to be selling my photographs at throughout the course of the year.  These are four specific ones that I think my toy photography prints will do well at.  I would like to do more than just these four, but these are the big ones: PopconYXE, the Cathedral Village Street Fair, Things I'd Kill For, and (if they run it again this year) the Moose Jaw Retro Game convention.

• Something I wanted to accomplish last year that fell by the wayside was regarding portraiture and further learning how to use my studio lights. This includes having the confidence to ask more people to get in front of my lens, as well as giving them direction once they are infront of it. I have a studio space that I can potentially use and rent fairly inexpensively, it is just a matter of finding people to model for me, coming up with concepts, and execute the plan (which all sounds nice and easy, until the monster that is my social anxiety interferes). If I can improve in this area I feel like it will be a big step for me, not just because I want to improve my skills in this subject, but mentally this has been a big hurdle for me to overcome and it will be a boost to my overall self confidence.

• I do have some goals regarding this blog. I know that I am pretty darned inconsistent when it comes to publishing posts on this page, but I'm hoping I can turn that around over this year.  The goal is publish one new post ever other Friday. That could give me time to discuss a decently well thought out piece and not just rush out something every week for the sake of getting it out every week. Additionally, there one other goal that ties into this one, and that is to challenge myself to do a 52 images in 52 weeks project. I will produce one new photo per week to post on my Blue Sky page.  Most likely it will be posted on Saturday, and then at the end of the month I will write a seperate blog post wrapping up what I achieved that month. What I liked, what I disliked, anything I feel that was interesting about my process. 

It feels like there's alot that I'm trying to accomplish with this hobby/growing small side hustle. If I know myself, at some point thought the year I will probably overdo it, feel burnt out, and need to take a break. I feel like all of these goals are very achievable and it's just all on me to make them happen. There are no outside forces that can hold me back or create excuses for me to fall on about why something wasn't achieved.  Of course life being what it is, there may be a curveball thrown my way at some point, but I just need to keep my eyes on how rewarding it will feel to cross these items off my list for next year. This is my 40th year on this earth and I want it to be overflowing with personal fullfillment.