It’s taken me an extra week, but here are my photography resolutions for the upcoming year:

1. Take at least 1 excellent portrait of each of the members of my immediate family.
   Thanks to Joe McNally and his wonderful books, I’ve been doing a lot more with off-camera flash this year so I’m keen to put this new skill to use and make some good images of Nikki and the kids. Now all I need to do is convince them to let me….
2. Find a venue for at least 1 solo exhibition.
   With the unfortunately closing of the Blue Goat Gourmet Cafe & Gallery in December, my show which was scheduled for October will now have to find a new venue.
3. Exhibit pieces in at least 2 juried shows.
   Submit art to various juried exhibitions in Central Texas and exhibit pieces in at least two shows during the year. Last year I had pieces hanging in 4 exhibitions but I’m lowering my goal here since I want to spend more time on other goals.
4. Finish reading the pile of photography books I’ve bought or been given this year.
   Actually, the pile has been growing for a couple of years since I’m a terrible book hoarder and buy at a rate rather above my reading speed. The current list includes both of David duChemin’s books, “Visionmongers” and “Within the Frame”, Paul Nicklen’s “Polar Obsession”, Scott Kelby’s “Digital Photography Book (Vol. 3)”, a large tome called “Through the Lens” from National Geographic, Robert Adams’ “Why People Photograph” and Jan Phillips’ “God is at Eye Level – Photography as a Healing Art”. I should probably “Ansel Adams – An Autobiography” and various other older books too. You get the idea?
5. Expand the number of images I have on sale via Getty Images.
   I went into the Flickr/Getty collaboration with very little optimism that I would sell much but have been very pleasantly surprised. Despite the fact that their photographer payments are extremely pathetic (20%), they do get buyers’ eyes on your photos and I’ve sold something every month. I have many more images on other stock agencies and my own sites but they get very little traffic so I’ll be concentrating on adding to the Getty collection this year on the grounds that 20% of something is a lot better than 80% of nothing.
6. Figure out how to effectively market art photography.
   The $64,000 question. I will be spending some time trying to figure out the best marketing strategies for my art photography. I have various avenues open just now but it’s not clear which offers the best return on investment so I’ll be researching and experimenting in this area too.
7. Create a coffee table book
   I would like to finish one local project and produce a photo book of the resulting images in the second half of the year. I tend to think in terms of one-off images but I would like to spend more time working on projects producing a set of related images.
8. Continue having a lot of fun creating images.
   This should really be number one. The main reason I take photographs is because I love creating new images!