Accomplishments In 2018 And What To Expect For 2019

2018 has been an interesting year. Personally, for this site, and for the blog. In this article, I want to look back with you on what I accomplished, and look forward to what I will be focusing on in 2019.

First, however, I want to thank all subscribers to the blog, and all followers on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. It is great to have an audience and to connect with you all, and getting feedback on my images and blog posts. You really are the reason I push myself, and continue to publish. Even when it is challenging to come up with new ideas and images, and when I need to drag myself to my laptop and start writing.

2018 Review and Accomplishments

As I mentioned during my 2017 end-of-year-review, developing and maintaining this website and blog helps me to focus on the quality of my images and finding my artistic voice and style.

This was the second year that I really committed to the site and blog, and publishing an article or story every week has been proven to be even more challenging than in 2017. And I have to admit: I missed a couple of times last year. Some instances of no-blog-this-week were the result of things that happened on my day job, but other instances, unfortunately, were just me dropping the ball.

At the closing of 2017, I set some goals for 2018. Let's have a look of what came true, and what not.

Digital Photography

I said I wanted to continue to be a mixed medium photographer, and I created quite some digital images. A quick check of my Lightroom catalog shows that I kept a total of 1,035 images during 2018, of which 846 (about 82%) are digital.

The majority of these were taken with the Fujifilm X-Pro1, which continues to be my trusted digital companion. While some digital images have been captured by my iPhone I still do not feel comfortable using a phone as a 'regular' camera. Does that show my age?

Film Photography

I wanted to expand my film photography and start my own developing, which only partially came true.

189 of the images I created during 2018 were film-based, and below you can see a break down per camera used.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to start my own developing. This is partially because I did not have (or...made) the time to build a darkroom, and partially because we have a septic tank and after reading up on septics and film developers I was not really sure if I wanted to build a darkroom.

Now with my move, starting mid-January, to South Africa, a darkroom is totally out of the picture (no pun intended), and even using film cameras at all might be in jeopardy.

More New Work For Blog Posts

I have to admit that I still am a bit struggling here: of the 1035 images produced during 2018, only 47 have been published. This in some cases is due to the fact that the images taken were for personal use only to start with. However, quite some images didn't make the cut or didn't find an appropriate story yet.

Which brings me to the next topic

PicTales, Haiku, and Essays/Editorial

About 35% of 2018's blog posts were PicTales and Haiku (11 PicTales and 7 Haiku of a total of 45 blog posts). Essays definitely fell between the cracks, with only 2 published. The biggest surprise for me actually was that I produced 25 articles with 'other' content (that is 56% of all posts).

Except for one survey, 11 of these 'other' posts were about Art Information (how to use art, art resources, the background of art) and 13 articles were about Photography Information (background info to my images and info about photography in general).

I have not done a detailed analysis of 'hits' per article yet (maybe something to share in the future), but the first glance over all blog posts show that this other content is quite popular by my subscribers and followers, and others who are looking for information on art or photography.

Calls For Entries and Contests

In my expectations for 2018, I indicated that I wanted to submit on a regular basis to Calls For Entries (CFEs) and Photo Contests, with the expectation to learn from the feedback on the quality of the images and to get a better feeling about the marketability of my prints.

In reality, I submitted five, eight, and three images respectively to a whopping number of three calls for entries/contests. One CFE got canceled and one did not result in anything (not even some feedback on the images). For one CFE, however, one of my images actually was selected for the show!

So in conclusion not as much shows as I thought I would submit to, a reasonable number of images submitted per show, and actually one image accepted (which I consider success!).

Selling Prints

I looked into it, thought about it, and eventually postponed any action other than making my prints available as open editions on the website, and setting a sales price for the one image that was in the SEC4P Fauna show. Going forward, I probably will maintain the Zenfolio sales opportunity but no further action yet regarding other sales venues.

Photography Projects

Ah, photography projects.

I actually started three specific projects. Two of these are essays related to the area where I live. Unfortunately, I have to put these on hold because of my move abroad. But definitely something I want to pick up again when I'm back. The third project was to produce a photo book based on my PicTales.

After having reviewed and selected the ones I liked best and keeping it focused on PicTales with black and white images only, I just at the end of 2018 published my book Tales From The Black Box.

My Goals For 2019

This year probably will be challenging for both my photography in general and this blog in particular.

First of all, my assignment abroad will bring a lot of work for my day job, as a result of which photography probably needs to be put on the backburner more often.

Secondly, I will not be able to take too much 'stuff' (including photography equipment) with me. So in the first instance, I will only take my trusted X-Pro1 and two prime lenses. Will I be able to take a film camera, or to even find film in South Africa? No clue yet.

However, keeping spirits up, I still expect to be able to go out and make (a lot of) pictures, submit to CFEs/Contests, write PicTales, Haiku, Essays, and other art and photography related articles, and maybe work on one or two photography projects.

Based on the limitations on equipment, I envision that most of my photography will be documentary and/or street photography. And reading posts of other photographers these limitations actually might be a blessing: helping to focus on working with one camera, one type of photography, one subject area. Who knows where this will lead to?!

2019 Goals:

• Continue with digital photography

• Do film photography if and whenever possible, looking at it as a bonus

• Continue to publish PicTales, Haiku, Essays, and general art and photography articles

• Continue to offer open edition prints for sales through this website

• Continue to submit to Calls For Entries and Contests

• Work on two new photography projects

• Use the limitations set on equipment and time available to focus on specific subjects and types of photography, and learn, learn, learn.

In summary, 2019 probably will be a year of consolidation, focusing, and learning, and I am actually quite looking forward to the challenges that have been set.

And I hope of course that you also will continue to follow me on my journey, wishing you all a great, exciting, and successful 2019!

Eric