Goals and Stuff

This morning I have been thinking a lot about my life and where I want to take my photography. I have been working to a goal of moving to NYC this year and it seems that things just kept getting in the way of that goal. Today I realized that maybe the goal wasn't attainable. I think I put a lot of emphasis on the idea of moving to NYC and working as a photographer, but not much thought into what I would do when I got there.  Or what steps I needed to accomplish to obtain that goal.  Moving to a new place doesn't make much sense unless you have plans in place to help you succeed there.

So I spent the morning researching online different things that have to do with the goals that I need to set. So to look at the large picture, My goal is that I want to be a successful commercial photographer. I love working with people and shooting products, so although at the end of photo school, I determined that I wanted to shoot fashion photography, I am unsure that fashion photography is the best fit for me. So lately I have been thinking of planning other shoots to bolster up my portfolio with different images that can make me a more well rounded photographer.

This means that I will be shooting a lot of images that I can add to my portfolio and keep me skilled as a photographer. One of the interesting things about graduating from with a degree in photography is the overwhelming sense that I have no idea where to even start building a career in photography. So to combat that I am working on 3 major goals.

Goal #1: Portfolio- I have touched on this a little already but I want to reiterate the goal of expanding my portfolio to include more product shots as well as dabbling in food and editorial portraiture.

Goal #2: Marketing- This past year I updated my website at www.jmichaelwiltbank.com and reworked my brand by updating my logo, business cards and website to make them all cohesive and streamlined. The next step in this process would be to make an email campaign and self promotional materials and new portfolio books. I am giving myself the until the end of January to get these items together. Once finished with the images, portfolios and marketing materials I am going to start a mail and email campaign to mail these items to photographers I am  interested in assisting. I will follow up sending my mail campaign with an email campaign. The purpose of all of this would be to get interviews for assisting work. I am planning a trip in April to go to NYC to meet with photographers and find work there.

Goal #3: Shooting- I know that sounds stupid to say that one of my goals for the coming year is going to be taking pictures. It is like telling a singer that they should have  goal to sing. So there is more to it than just shooting images. I am going to plan out 52 themed assignments to shoot and then shoot that assignment once a week. I know of people who have had a goal to shoot 365 images in a year, so one each day. I am going to be honest and say this might be a little difficult for me, so I am going to plan one per week.

Ok so if you have read all of this, then I would say you need to get a hobby...but really that was boring. So here is an image I took the other night at the movies. Enjoy!