It's certainly been an interesting year. I'm glad we all survived it.
Here's my list of goals for 2020:
Give more to charities.
Give more time to charities.
Become a better portrait photographer.
Spend less time spending.
Spend more time doing.
Always consider: "What if the other guys is right?"
Get some mileage on all the cool cameras I bought in the last last year.
Celebrate each victory and milestone with appropriate gusto!
Learn what's most meaningful to me in life right now.
Help young people learn the ropes in the creative life.
Print more beautiful photographs and hang them in more places.
Write more positive stuff here on the blog and worry less about pillorying the idiots that dot the landscape.
Read more novels. Read fewer "how to" books. Read even fewer websites.
Think more about "why" and "what" and a lot less about "how."
Become a more empathetic portrait photographer.
Love my dog as much as she seems to love me.
Eat something scary every once in a while.
Go hear live music that I didn't know I'd like.
See a Rosini opera in some great opera house somewhere in the world.
Figure out how to migrate the files on my old Mac to my new Mac in less that a week.....
Keep cash in my pocket since the homeless don't accept credit cards.
Learn to tolerate the opinions of others instead of vilifying them and rejecting them.
Speak up when I know what's right.
Try not to ever have to shoot at 12500 ISO.
Mat whatever I decide to frame.
Never tell a young person: This is how we used to do it!
Photograph more ideas and fewer proofs of concept, or proofs of mastery.
Spend more time with Belinda and less time with Tony Northrup, Jared Polin, Ken Rockwell, and that whole crew of lightweights over at DP Review.
Forget that there are camera specs and remember that you only really need to know six menu settings in order to do fine work.
Remind myself often that the more we pack into our camera bags the fewer good images we'll come back home with.
Finally, it's more important to be a good person than it is to be a good photographer. I think Eugene Richards taught me that this year.
I hope I get to meet more and more VSL readers in person this year.
Happy New Year! Don't wait, get busy and have more fun. Warmest regards, Kirk
16 comments:
All the best to you and your family in the new year!
Great list!
Best to you and yours in the coming year.
Fantastic!
Great to have as my reminder for 2020.
Happy New Year to you and your family!
Regards,
David
Much appreciated.
Mostly a pretty good list.
Except for that silly thing you said about loving your dog as much as she loves you...
More coffee with friends.
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year mate. Thanks for the thought provoking list.
Max from Down Under
Wishing you and your family a happy and healthy New Year from the Netherlands Kirk. Thank you for keeping your blog alive and kicking.
Keep up the good work! Love your blog.
Ohhhhhh. Love your list. Inspiring.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, and techniques last year Kirk. My New Years resolutions aren't nearly as ambitious as yours, but hope to improve on last years efforts.
And, I also made the upgraded my iMac this year, and haven't attempted (the daunting task) to move my files from old to new. I would appreciate your insights on that.
Happy New Year........
"I hope I get to meet more and more VSL readers in person this year."
Well, every time I'm in Precision I look around and think, I wonder if Kirk is here? Maybe some day it will happen and I'll interrupt your camera trading to introduce myself!
In any case, thanks for another great blog year and looking for more in the new year.
Kirk,
to You and your Family, including Studio Dog,
A Happy New Year!
And a Merry - and prosperous - New Photo Year!
- * -
Now, if I may, totally O.T.,
but important to one and all
(and good to consider at the start of 2020):
( For each day of the summer and winter holidays Swedish Radio invites well-known people to hold a 90 min. talk show mixed with music.)
Today it was Johan Rockström,
Professor in Environmental science
at Stockholm University,
who made a significant talk on the still open possibility to keep climate change within limits.
For once there is also an English version of his talk in ”Vinter i P1” :
Download :
https://sverigesradio.se/topsy/ljudfil/srse/7197803.mp3
Listen online :
https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/1425542
- - -
Also several talks of his on YouTube,
especially :
"5 transformational policies for a prosperous and sustainable world"
( TED Talk,
12 min., one year ago )
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv-tDrv__mc
and
"Beyond the Anthropocene"
( World Economic Forum,
21 min., two years ago)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V9ETiSaxyfk
- - -
[ Johan Rockström :
" After 12 years as director of Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC), he became 2018 joint director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), based in Germany, together with PIK's current deputy director Professor Ottmar Edenhofer. Rockström and Edenhofer replace PIK director Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber. He has recently joined climate change charity Cool Earth as a trustee."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Rockstr%C3%B6m
"' Rockström is internationally recognized on global sustainability issues. In 2009, he led the team which developed the Planetary Boundaries framework, a proposed precondition for facilitating human development at a time when the planet is undergoing rapid change."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries
]
👍🏼
Great list of goals. Best wishes toward achieving as many as possible.
May I make a suggestion regarding charities? Whenever it’s time to buy something from Amazon (an almost daily event for at least one who need not be named) approach the site via smile.amazon.com. That is, when it’s not a photo gear purchase made through an affiliate link benefitting your favorite blogger / vlogger.
It takes only moments to register your preference after signing into Amazon and finding the “smile” signup form. From that point on every time you log into smile.amazon.com, rather than just going to Amazon directly, a small portion of your transaction is diverted to your designated charity. It works just like the affiliate links, costing you nothing.
Of course, Amazon gets credit for the donation but who cares? The charity gets the cash - in my case, Doctors Without Borders. Last quarter’s Amazon contribution to Doctors Without Borders through this program totaled $129,199. To date, Doctors Without Borders has received $2,475,936 - all at no cost to those buying crock pots, TV sets, Illy coffee, or toilet paper.
If you’re a regular buyer of stuff in general from Amazon, take a look at this year’s credit card summary. You may be amazed at the total spent there. Setting aside the arguments for buying locally, we have to recognize that an endless torrent of money is going to flow in that direction anyway. I say split off some portion of that toward an organization more in need than Jeff Bezos.
Thanks so much for this list. It was a kick in the pants for me to expand my goals.
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