As we come into 2009, I’m planning to make a change to this site, by adding a new section for my 2009 project – to have one new photo per week up here at the Weekly Photo section.

With the NCFE course, I’ve started taking more photos – which was one of the main goals of starting the course – and it’s provided me with some motivation. While the course is still ongoing, I want to give myself some extra motivation to keep on doing the same kind of thing.

Now I know that “one photo per week” doesn’t sound like much – but right now I’d rather have quality than quantity, and have one decent photo per week than five or six ropy ones I’m not entirely happy with if I were doing a “one photo per day” project.  I’ve got the greatest respect for the Project365 people who do undertake that challenge, but with the amount of things I’m currently doing, for me it just wouldn’t be practical. Besides, I know that as I got further behind on a “photo per day” project, I’d get more and more demotivated. (which may or may not be grammatical, but you get the idea)

The aim with a “photo per week” is just to keep on going, keep on going out and taking photos, with the aim of putting them up on the site. It might end up as being more than one photo per week, but the primary aim is to have at least one new photo each week of 2009.

Of course, it also meant I had to add in some new code, but that’s what Christmas was for…

Last week, one of the assignments on the NCFE course was to take some night shots.

I did try – but my subject was rather more ambitious (and thus far less successful) than I’d hoped for, so I’m going to be re-doing the entire thing at some point.

The bit that annoyed me more than anything else though (well, other than the vile weather on pretty much every available evening) was that I couldn’t do a better job, despite having the right equipment to do a long exposure. I bought a Pclix two years ago which is ideal for the task of long exposures – only I’ve lost the cable that connects the Pclix to the camera. And that, of course, is the bit I really needed.

So I’ve ordered a new cable – which also means I’m due to find the old one any time now – and once it arrives I’ll go out and actually make use of that purchase from two years ago…

At the moment, I’m just starting to think about my photography plans for 2009. A lot of it is still very much “up in the air”, but I think that if I have some specific goals to work towards over the year, it may work out a bit more successful than the current state of affairs.

Of course, the first thing is to complete the NCFE qualification that I wrote about back in October. There’s a project that needs to be done for it, which will take me a while – I’ve already got the plan and idea, it’s just seeing whether the necessary people agree to it or not.

At the same time, I’ve got two small ongoing projects which I want to kickstart again for 2009, with a view to having them both at least completed Stage One by the end of the year. (Stage Two is ’somehow make some commercial use of the projects’, which may take a bit longer)

In the second half of 2009, I’m also planning to spend some time attempting to sell some of the photos I’ve taken – some of which are on here, some aren’t. That also means that the first half of 2009 is going to be spent attempting to take some photos that are appealing and sellable, as well as sorting out decent printing etc.  Initially, I won’t be framing them – although they will be sold with a backing mat, to enable them to be framed easily – because I feel that frames are very much a personal choice, and while providing a ready-framed print might make them appealing to some, I think that it will alienate more people than it appeals to.

I’m also planning to get this site redesigned a bit – it’s not working the way I’d like it to, so I think it’s time to take a look at a better way of doing things. That’ll possibly also mean figuring out a new way to show the portfolio etc., which should be interesting.

So that’s it, the plans for 2009:

1. NCFE completion
2. Project Progression
3. Site redesign
4. Sell some photos/prints

And that’s it.

Oh, except for one more thing. I’m planning to update this blog on a more regular basis too, so we’ll have to see how that goes over time…