Short Term Goals

Most days at work are pretty slow. Sometimes hours will go by with only two, three, or maybe no customers coming in. I've been brining Chesterton's "Orthodoxy" with me to read in the slow hours (and to try and fulfill my goal of actually finishing it, an endeavor I began last December), but today I'm pretty tired and don't feel like I have the mental energy to process that kind of work.

Earlier, as I was sitting at the computer, clicking mindlessly through xkcd comics, checking the clock every four minutes, my mind wandered to a posting on Facebook I saw the other day. My friend had posted a bunch of photos he had taken on a Walgreens disposable camera; most of them turned out pretty cool, and I find the slightly fuzzy, colors slightly off, scanned-in effect endearing and possessing a new freshness in this age of digital photography. I began to think, wouldn't it be fun to do that myself? To carry around a dispoable point-and-shoot and take photos of interesting things throughout my day? What if I turned it into a project? Every week would have a different theme of kinds of photos, for example.

Then I thought, hey, I have that really nice copy of National Geographic's Field Guide to Photography that Jordan's mom gave me a couple of years ago. I've flipped through it, but I've barely scratched the surface when it comes to technical understanding of digital SLRs. I can take a decent photo with my Nikon D40, but how often do I stray from auto, or the very basic knowledge I have of manipulating the manual settings? I realized that my Field Guide would be the perfect book to bring to work, to look through during slow times and increase my photography knowledge.

With all of these thoughts swimming around in my head, I came up with this idea: I want to be a better photographer, I have an awesome camera and an awesome photogrpahy guide; why not turn that into a project?

So here it is: Beginning next week and going through, December maybe? - ending with the fall semester seems doable, and gives me a solid timeline that I'm accustomed to - I'll pick a theme for the week (red things, trash, architecture, and darkness are among the ideas I've jotted down so far) and, using skills learned from my photography guide, I'll take at least one picture every day within that theme. I have to look at my guide again, but maybe I can divide it up by chapter or theme as well; f-stops, or shutter speed, or utilizing flash, etc.

I think this is doable. Short term goals are good for you, right? And this way, I'll have specific weekly goals to help me work through my guide and enhance my photography skills, instead of just flipping the pages aimlessly and taking ten photographs of my couch, or other random objects. It will (I hope) help me get to know my camera while training me to see interesting, beautiful, captivating things within my daily life.

I think I'll post weekly photos, just to make it even more fun! At least one a week, or more, if I happen to have multiple favorites. I'm excited!