10 Photography Targets For 2010

This may come a bit late, since it's already February, but I'd like to share with you what I wanted to achieve this year related to my hobby. These may be simple to some, but as a TV ad kept on reminding kids, "great things start from small beginnings."

1. Attend a photography workshop. I've already mentioned this in my previous blog post, but I feel this should still be on the list. I have a lot to learn, and I think this is the only way that I can further improve myself with regards to photography.


2. Print at least one (or two) of my shots in large format. Think A3 or larger size. Then I'd hang it on a wall in our room.


3. Shift away from aperture and shutter priority and stay with manual. This is a personal challenge that is taking me long enough to achieve. I think I should force myself to shoot at M-mode from now on.


4. Use custom white balance. Too much I have relied on Digital Photo Professional to adjust the white balance of my shots. I should do this before I start taking pictures. I should learn how to get everything right on-camera.


5. Stop looking at the LCD screen after every shot. I instinctively do this whenever I take my shots. The results? I miss possibly great captures because my eyes were glued to the LCD. I've already turned off auto preview. I'm thinking of turning off the LCD altogether and start looking at the settings through the viewfinder's display instead.


6. Develop my own photography style. If you'd look at my Flickr and Snapixel accounts, you'd see that it's a hodgepodge of pictures that, wonderful as they may be, look like they were not taken by the same person. One looks brighter than the other, one has a washed-out style, another had this 'lomo' look. I should strive to be consistent from now on.


7. Refine my workflow. Right now, my workflow goes like: Reset the cam, change all settings to my usual, take the pictures. Upon reaching home, offload pics to the laptop using Canon EOS Utility (auto-rename has been set), then use Digital Photo Professional to cull through the shots. After culling, tag the remaining pics. Import the pictures to LightRoom 3 Beta. Correct the colors if necessary. Clean artifacts if there are any. Export to JPEG all that will be posted online, check if watermarking is necessary. After posting, delete all JPEGs. Perform backup to external HDD. Tedious isn't it? There should be a better way to do this!


8. Learn how to focus manually. I've dreamed of learning how not to rely on the camera's AF function. However at the moment I'm trying to set the diopter of the viewfinder correctly to achieve proper focus on the lens. What happens if the diopter setting doesn't match what the lens 'sees'? I see the image well-focused on the viewfinder, but when I load it to the computer, it's actually blurred.


9. Do a portrait shoot in a studio. This goes with #2. There are a lot of studios for rent here in Manila, with a lot of lighting options available, on the cheap. Maybe I'd do this after the photography workshop.


10. Post a (serious) entry to a major photo contest. Canon usually holds at least one photography contest every year, so do some photography organizations. This should be the culmination of all that I have (and will) learn about photography for this year.

Are you interested with photography like I do? If you have any, I'd like to learn if you have any photography goals for the year. You may post them as a comment or post the link if you have then in your blog.

Photography With A Purpose

You can't teach an old dog new tricks, an old adage says. That's what I'll be trying to disprove come March 13. I signed up as a participant to Imagine Nation Photography's "The Purppose Driven Photographer (PDP). It will be a 7-day "journey", held every Saturday from 10am to 6pm.

I have long dreamed of participating in a photography workshop ever since a friend got into one for free (after he bought his DSLR late last year). I never thought about actually signing up for one until my wife and I stumbled on the PDP website while looking for a friend's prenuptial pictorial online. My wife suggested the workshop as her post-Christmas present to me, knowing that I'm sure to choose it over a pair of rubber shoes.

Participating in a photography workshop is different from learning on your own. Yes I can learn all the settings and all there is on my camera by myself, but a workshop would provide an expert who can teach me the intangibles, like how to bend the rules in composition and lighting, and how to position and communicate with the models in getting the image that I want. Moreover, 'connections' with other photographers can be built as we go along those seven sessions. Who knows, we might be working on a future project as a group!

I think it's obvious that I'm excited with this. I've got great expectations on myself once this workshop is over, as I feel that a lot of what I do on photography is based on 'textbook information'.

For more information, please visit the PDP website.

Long time, No see...

It's a usual Filipino expression when meeting someone who's not been around for quite some time. Definitely me and my blog haven't seen each other for 2 months.

Another lull, you'd say? As much as I wanted to focus on making posts I was thinking of how I would want my blog to present me as a person.

Narrowing My Focus

Do I want to focus on a niche topic, as other would do when creating a blog? That would attract loyal followers, but which topic do I focus on? My photography? Family life? Raising children? I was quite successful doing that with my 52 weeks photography project, but I can't seem to find one to talk about at great length in a blog. I've been at it for weeks, and I still have none.

Free-flow

Do I post at random, as what I have been doing for my past blogs? Wait, I'm doing that with my microblogs, so doing so would just be an exercise in redundancy. I remember one of the reasons for my blog reboot is that I myself got sick of reading everything about me from several microblog and social network site accounts. I wanted to post something different here.

Give...

I would want to have a 'tips' site, and at the moment I'm wracking my brains trying to think about it. I can help others if they ever do stumble upon this blog.

I'll try that for now, and I hope it would be 'THAT' thing that would keep me blogging as often for the longest time.