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| Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved |
Well, I've been around the block enough times to know that I'm not the kind of guy who makes resolutions at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve...I drink with moderation, don't smoke and eat reasonably healthy food...and I exercise.
I have a few decisions, thoughts and ideas trotting around in my mind, and those that relate to photography are as follows:
1. During 2014, I will not buy any new photographic equipment* (with one possible exception: a XF35mm f1.4 for my X Pro1...maybe).
I have a M9 with two fantastic lenses, a X Pro1 with a superb 18mm lens, a Canon 5D Mark II and a 7D with a bunch of lenses...so why would I need anything else? In my view, the DSLRs have begun to lose the usefulness status they once possessed insofar as I'm concerned, and the much lighter rangefinder-like cameras are getting easier as I get used to them, and better at each new iteration.
*What I may do, however, is to upgrade from my iPhone4s.
2. During 2014, I will try to expand my brand (The Travel Photographer) into Google+ and start an Instagram feed. I'm not yet fully committed to these two social-sharing platforms, and while time consuming, I will focus on them a little more.
3. Apart from my March 2013 photo expedition and multimedia workshop, and my teaching gig with the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Guatemala in July...I intend to hold a two weeks photo expedition in Vietnam during early fall. It'll probably focus on the country's northern territories, and I want it to be more of a travel-ethnographic event than my usual photojournalism-documentary. Yes, I led one in 2012, but I want to go a little deeper this time.
4. I've already started on this, but I will experiment with new styles of street photography in NYC. The most recent frames on my sister blog The Leica File are reflective of this 'experimentation'. Not ground breaking by any means, but I seek to add some "spice' to my approach in that field...whether it's by using specific camera settings or new ways of "seeing"...
5. I'd like to experiment with square format photography by using the new technology currently available (see the photograph above). It's certainly the influence of Hipstamatic and Instagram, and since I enjoy both these apps, why not?
6. Monochromatic shooting...or in less aristocratic terms, black and white. This is going to take a larger chunk of my photographic work during 2014 (and beyond).
There. Six very modest thoughts/ideas/plans that I'm thinking of.
Will I do them all or not? We'll see....but I usually do what I set out to do.
