A Good Harvest - My 2016 Photos

A Good Harvest

Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop
– Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams

My 2016 Harvest

This past year was a strange one for me photographically. It started with me unsure where I was headed, I had a couple of studio sessions where I flailed around with ideas trying to come up with some new body of work. I did continue my “On the Rocks” series but overall I felt directionless.

Looking back at the year and the photos I produced all of the work was sporadic and produced in March, May, September and December. I had months where I didn’t pick up a camera and had no motivation to, yet in those 4 months were I did pick up the camera I produced more and better images than I ever have in the past.

I took 38097 photos in 2016 which is almost 33% more than I did in 2015 (24,063).

The Breakdown

	Non-Model	Models	Totals
Total	7,810	30,287	38,097
Keepers	137	196	333
Portfolio Worthy	49	134	183
5 Star	11	25	36

Keepers – these are the photos that I actually edited and considered finished.
Portfolio Worthy – There are images that I actually exhibited or showed to others via my web site, social media, etc.
5 Star – These are the photos I consider my best work of the year. These are my “Harvest” or “Crop” for the year

The Images

Analysis

When I was putting together this post I was concerned that I had so many I considered great images and wondered if I was just not being critical enough of my photos. But most have won awards or been published which seems to imply that other people appreciate them as well. Would love to have you feedback on the images.

Mixing It Up

I think it is interesting that the images fit into 3 categories, a continuation of my On the Rocks series, the Utah Adventure trips really helped with this, being able to spend straight 5 days shooting really helped me get into a great photographic mindset and really explore some ideas.

The second group are the studio shots and these predominantly part of the series I call Geometric Progression, and involve using black and white as the main theme in the images. There were was also one from the Blind Religion body of work, and a new one from my as yet untitled Room series. Except for the Room series all of these images were done in the first couple of months of the year when I still felt like I was flailing about.

The final group are the underwater images. I tried it on a fluke in August and was pleased with the results I was getting right off the bat so I decided to continue. I will definitely be exploring this more in 2017 as I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface (pun was unintended, but I liked it so I left it in, which I guess then makes it intended).

I believe it is because of doing these three disparate types of shoots that I have such a large number of keepers this year. Any one category would produce less than Ansel’s number of twelve. To further the analogy it’s like planting three different crops and getting a good harvest on each.

How Was Your Crop?

I would love to hear how many 5 star photos you shot this past year. So share with me in the comments below or on my Facebook page.

by Craig Colvin

Review of 2014 Photography Goals

At the beginning of each year I plan out my photography goals for the coming year.

Here is the post where I talked about my goals for 2014. It is now 2015 and time to review those goals.

Here Were My 2014 Goals

Become a Better Photographer
- Attend one workshop or conference every quarter
- 30 mins of photography education every day (see this blog post)
- Schedule one photowalk every month
- Schedule one photography trip every quarter (Oregon Coast, Zion, Boston, Page)
Grow my Photography Audience
- Post 2 photos/week on social media sites
- Submit every new project to print publications until it is published
- Enter a photo contest very month
- Pursue and participate in a galley show every quarter
Create Epic Photos
- Schedule one large production shoot every quarter
- Complete 4 current photo projects
  - Shoot Multiscapes II in January
  - Shoot one conceptual photo each month
  - Schedule 3 shoots to complete Paper Doll project
  - Edit and compile Reflections photos
- Start 4 new projects

How Did I Do?

Become a Better Photographer

I did reasonably well with these goals. I attended workshops with Aperture Acdemey in Yosemite, a workshop with Glen Wexler at the Palm Spring Photo Festival, Photoshop World in Las Vegas, and a Kim Weston Nude Workshop in Carmel.

I had photo trips to the Salton Sea, Joshua Tree NP, Oregon Coast, Rome, Yosemite and Alaska (although Alaska was not specifically a photography trip I did get some great photos). I did a total of 9 photowalks so not quite one a month, and I did my 30 mins of photography education each day for a total of 312 days. So I consider this a success and would give myself an A.

Grow my Photography Audience

I struggled with portions of this. Let's start with the successes. I showed my work in 9 different exhibits and galleries. Two of these were art shows where I was able to sell my art and I made over a dozen sales of my prints at these 2 shows. I entered 7 contests and won awards in 5 including the grand prize in the 3rd Eros Awards. I found it difficult to enter one contest a month as there weren't a lot of contests that accept nude works and my non-nude works I don't feel are quite up to my standards yet.

Now for the failures. I did posted a lot more photos to social media than I have in the past but it was very sporadic and was no where near 2 photos/week. Part of my challenge is I want to post some of my latest nude works, but I can't easily do so on social media. I'm going to work on this for 2015.

I also did not do well with submitting work to publishers until it gets published. I did attend FotoFest in Houston where I showed my work to numerous publishers, but no takers. My challenge here seems to be more about identifying appropriate publications to submit to.

Create Epic Photos

I did well on doing a large production shoot every quarter, I ended up doing five. I did the Rainbow Multiscapes, Joshua Tree nudes, Burying bodies in the sand, created a wet set in the studio for water shoots, and did a series of flour shoots. I'm happy with the results from all of them except the sand shots, they did not live up to my vision. Overall I'm very happy with the shots I got from these big productions and it just reinforces the idea that doing the hard work has it's rewards.

I did change my direction over the year and ended up abandoing the Paper Doll project, I also did not shoot one conceptual photo each month or start 4 new projects. I feel like I could have shot a lot more this past year, but I struggled with concepts. I tried to fit all my shoots into the overall umbrella of "The Body as Art" and I think that restricted me somewhat from trying other things that might have resulted in some significant new project. So I've learned from that and going to make sure I don't get stuck in a rut with my photography projects.

Grade A for big production shoots, F for new projects, with biased and weighted averaging I'm going to give myself a B. :)

What's Next?

Now it is time to create my list of goals for the coming year. I'll save that for another post.

So how you do last year?

by Craig Colvin

Plan to Improve your Photography in 2014

Almost every photographer I talk to wants to improve their photography. But when I ask them how they are doing that, they will have no plan or just vague thoughts about perhaps getting around to watching some online tutorial. Not a very efficient or practical way to improve.

Photographic Goals

The best way to improve is to plan your photography. Set photographic goals.

Since it's the beginning of the year a lot of people make New Year's Resolutions. I'm personally not a big fan of resolutions, but I do think this is a good time to review/set your photographic goals and create a road map for achieving those goals.

Start with the BIG GOALS. For example, here are some of my for 2014 BIG GOALS

Become a Better Photographer
Grow my Photography Audience
Create Epic Photos

As you can see these are big, nebulous goals and if I stopped here they are meaningless goals. I could probably make progress on each of these in a couple of weeks and claim I had met my goals for the year. What's the point in that?

What's Your Target

To make these big goals meaningful you need to add metrics. How much do I want to grow my photography audience? 1 person, 100 people, 200%? The actual number is less important than actually having a number to shoot for.

The famous quote by Peter Drucker applies here, "What Gets Measured Gets Managed", by adding metrics to your goals you will be able to track your progress and know what the goal really means.

So add metrics to your goals to turn them into Targets.

Create a Roadmap

I recently talked to a photographer who said they wanted to take 12 great photos over the next year, photos they would be proud to hang on their wall. That's a great goal! I then asked them how they planned to do that, and they didn't have a clue. So then I asked how they had done last year and they said they had only taken 2 photos that were "wall-worthy". After further discussion it turns out they had only been out shooting 5 times over the past year. It's going to be very difficult to get 12 great photos in a year if you only go out to shoot 5 times in the year.

So now that you have to listed your BIG GOALS you need to think about how you are going to achieve those goals. Listing the steps necessary will become your roadmap to follow throughout the year to make sure you acheive your goal. In the above example of creating 12 great photos during the year you would first determine what steps would be necessary to create a great image. Going out and shooting is the obvious first step, so you should probably shoot a lot. So perhaps the step necessary would be something like "schedule 2 photo shoots a month", or perhaps more. The point is to create a sub-goal that will help you realize the BIG GOAL of 12 great photos for the year.

Here is a breakdown of what I'm going to do to reach my BIG GOALS

Become a Better Photographer
- Attend one workshop or conference every quarter
- 30 mins of photography education every day (see this blog post)
- Schedule one photowalk every month
- Schedule one photography trip every quarter (Oregon Coast, Zion, Boston, Page)
Grow my Photography Audience
- Post 2 photos/week on social media sites
- Submit every new project to print publications until it is published
- Enter a photo contest very month
- Pursue and participate in a galley show every quarter
Create Epic Photos
- Schedule one large production shoot every quarter
- Complete 4 current photo projects
  - Shoot Multiscapes II in January
  - Shoot one conceptual photo each month
  - Schedule 3 shoots to complete Paper Doll project
  - Edit and compile Reflections photos
- Start 4 new projects

As you can see I have a detailed plan of how to accomplish each goal. In addition I have a spreadsheet where I schedule which month I'm going to do each of these sub-goals. This makes sure that I'm always making progress on my goals and don't push off a goal to the future.

Plan to Improve Your Photography in 2014

So what are your photography goals for 2014? Share them in the comments, I would love to hear them.

by Craig Colvin