Looking back on 2010’s Goal/Memories:

2010 Highlights/Memories:
Getting to shoot in a Japanese Studio with *juunana *cough*~~love hotel~~*cough*
Shooting *etaru in a bikini
Getting to work with all cosplayers I got the chance to meet and shoot
Published in Otacool 2
Selling first photos through website
As always working with many fantastic cosplayers from all parts of the world
Meeting *hexlord, ~unforgivenmind, =cosplayshots, Jason@i360, LJinto, ~TheDreamerWorld, and many other fantastic photographers

Improvements made in 2010:
Use of Lightroom
Small improvements in lighting and model direction

2010 Work On/Goals:
Model Direction/Communication - A little better but a long way to go
Processing Speed - urrrr nope, got myself a bad reputation as well ><
Be published again - Done, Otacool 2 and Animania Calendar
Upload something to DA at least once a week - Tried and failed
Take less but better photos - Tried and failed
Be more confident with myself and my style - Still trying

Unlikely Goals
Getting on front page of DA - Nothing I uploaded did, but a couple *juunana uploaded got there
Get a Daily Deviation - Nope
Being well known outside Australia - Maybe a little from people I met in the USA but not really
Getting a paid, published work - Nope

Year Result - C- - Some of my shoot work, especially stuff early in the year came out pretty well, but still way too slow and had a lot more shoots not happy with than happy with. Getting two photos into Otacool 2 probably got that score up a little more than otherwise would have been.</i>

Looking Back on 2010 Write Up

Had a very busy start to the year in regards to photoshoots, which was enjoyable but took its toll. Things really slowed down in the latter half of the year and haven’t done many photoshoots since. This has been for various reasons and did disappoint me but has made me see that there are so many new and better photographers coming along (and every man and his dog getting a DSLR), that I am not as needed or as good (not that I ever thought I was that good) as I thought.

For a while this thought got me down that I had lost the one thing that people wanted me around for, but after a while, my out look changed. I have a lot of deficiencies that I have to fix before I can expect people to want me to take photos of them. Especially since often it takes a lot more organising to get me for a shoot, due to work and how far away I live, so I have to be worth that effort. The other thought is that there are always going to be new and more popular photographers come along, but if I can keep improving, start delivering in a timely fashion, and keep doing what I know, there will be people that will want to work with me.

2010 was a lot quieter in regards to shoots at conventions as well with a lot less booked shoots. Payment for shoots was once again pretty well a failure. Either I feel bad taking people's money or they were unable to pay

I can’t really blame them when I have become so slow in processing them. This isn’t helped by my desktop computer dieing partway through the year and having to use a little, under powered netbook >< I am still working on a lot of the photos from last year >< I apologise profusely and will do my best to get photos to people asap and not be this tardy again.

Technically I don’t think I have really made much progress if any this year which does disappoint me. Once again I let myself stall. I did learn a fair bit while in America from ~unforgivenmind but have not put it into practice and when the chance has come up, I have just fallen back to my regular habits. Thank you thought to all the people that had shoots with me in the past year. It was a lot of fun and adds to my experience.

While in America I got the chance to meet and hang out with some very awesome photographers and see how they work and I think just observing them taught me quite a bit. The differences between how ‘American’ and ‘Australian’ photographers work seems small, but I noticed a few things that should be able to help me.

I did meet quite a lot of photographers in the last year that I have admired for a long time and the experience of hanging out with them encouraged me. Shout outs to ~unforgivenmind, =cosplayshots, *hexlord, Jason@i360, ~TheDreamerWorld, and LJinto (who I have probably admired the longest and now admire more that I have met him), it was a pleasure to meet you and learn from you!

Looking ahead to 2011’s Goal:

2011 Work on/Goals
Faster Output/Processing
Improved lighting setups
Organise more shoots myself
Goal/idea/story for the photos I take
Upload 26 things to DA this year (something every two weeks)

Continuing Goals:
Model Direction/communication/control
Be published again
Getting on front page of DA
Sell some photos on website
Take less but better photos
Be more confident with myself and my style

Impossible/unlikely Goals
Get a Daily Deviation
Getting a paid, published work
~~Being well known outside Australia~~ - Removing as it isn’t a good goal to have, should just work on producing good,quality work I am happy with, not popularity

Looking Ahead to 2011 Write Up

Main thing I need to achieve in 2011 is a much faster output speed. I have given myself a bad reputation of either being very slow or not delivering at all and I need to fix this. When it comes to conventions, especially, no one is interested in photos several months latter. When it comes to photoshoots I am going to have to find a balance I am happy with that lets me do enough edits so I am happy with the photos but quick enough for the subject to be happy. That is this years main goal.

Related to this, I am also going to be keeping the schedule system but updating it and the payment system. I am not going to be taking payments up front like I have in the past. I don’t feel that I deserve the respect to be paid when people do no know how long it is going to take me to deliver. I am going to try a system, that if people want photos in a hurry, they let me know and if I get them done within a certain amount of time, then they buy the photos from the website. I will be giving this a trial run for the next few cons and hopefully it works.

The new year hasn’t started that well really for me. Unlike the past few years where I have done heaps of shoot at the end/start of year period, I haven’t done any this year. Been a combination of a few things including an increase in photographers that are easier to organise and, face it, much better. The other reason would be that I haven’t organised any shoots. I have been too dependant on others organising things and telling me to just be there. I need to take more initiative, but this hasn’t been possible with the situations I have been in (floods, mentally and physically). Hopefully I can turn this around soon. It also seems I have also fallen out of favour of late which is another story, but hopefully can fix that as well.

Something that has helped restore my faith has been how well the photo of *13-Zer0 I uploaded did. It didn’t reach the front page or anything, but has become my most fav’d work and when someone uploaded it to Tumblr it did the rounds like crazy there. This has helped get my confidence back that a photo doesn't need to be shopped to hell or filled with tits and arse to be well received.

The challenge for the year is going to be getting and keeping myself in the right head space and keeping to my resolution of faster processing.

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