ERIC KIM

10 Photography New Year’s Resolutions

Dear friends,

The New Year is just around the corner, and I wanted to use this opportunity to share some practical New Year’s Photo Resolutions you can apply!

  1. For all of this year, only shoot with one camera and one lens for the entire year. Practical idea: just shoot only with RICOH GR III for the entire year.
  2. Make a photographic e-book with your favorite 40 photos of all-time in Adobe InDesign or Apple iBooks Author (free). Export as PDF, and share on your blog, and email it to friends and family!
  3. Embark on at least on photographic road-trip or photographic adventure. You can do a quick day-trip, fly somewhere domestic, or fly somewhere international. For international trips, try to stay in one city for an entire week and devote it only to photography!
  4. Start a photographic selfie project. Try to shoot a selfie everyday for a year, and at the end, choose your 12 favorite selfies from the year, and share it on your website/blog.
  5. Print a ‘zine’ (magazine) of your favorite photographs. Design it in Adobe InDesign, export as PDF, and send the PDF file to a local printer. Keep it simple– just print in black and white. Print 20 copies, and distribute them to friends and family. Or sell them to your followers for $20 USD a pop.
  6. For the entire year, stick to either color or black and white. Treat this as a positive ‘creative constraint’ to help you focus on honing your artistic vision.
  7. Stop calling yourself a photographer; call yourself a ‘visual artist’ instead.
  8. Start your own photography blog (register on bluehost.com and install wordpress.org), and/or start your own YouTube channel. Blog about your personal thoughts (photo or non-photo related), and register your own domain name (firstnamelastnamephoto.com)
  9. Buy yourself a nice photo book once a month (1 book a month, 12 books in the entire year). When you feel the urge to buy a new camera (you don’t need), buy a photo book instead.
  10. Make photos you would enjoy privately. Test yourself: “If I didn’t share this photograph with anyone else, would it still bring me joy?”