As I sit down and begin to type this while Ghostbusters plays next to me I realized many things about myself and photography. Visions, tastes, outlook and life all look different as time continues to pass and you can either be stuck in the past or move into the present and accomplish the things you set out to do.

I’ve been serious about photography for about 3 years now and have changed as a person and as photographer faster than I would have imagined in those 3 short years. What I preferred to photograph is completely non existent to me anymore, my style of shooting has developed, the ideals I had about lenses and cameras have transformed and even how I edit continued to adapt to my changing tastes. Without these changes we no longer progress and become stuck in the same patterns each and every day we pick up our gear. This would break away from my philosophy of constantly learning and growing as an artist as well as a human.

In the last month I have gone back and looked at all my old work and tried to give it a new eye while reviving what was once gone to me. We grow out of certain styles just like the kids shopping at the mall for a new pair of pants so maybe what I’ve taken in could be applied to these images. I sat down, went through thousands of old images that I no longer loved like I had when I captured them and gave them a life beyond the hard drive.

The strangest thing happened through this process and it taught me quite a bit about where I want to be in the next few years and how I’m going to get there. I used to shoot with more carelessness but also with more energy. I used to leave my editing style very plain and ordinary and they lacked detail I would like to have seen from them. The images showed repetition in shooting style, location, editing and many more intricate pieces of the photographic puzzle that are typically forgotten do to the excitement the next photo provided. I realized I was shooting and progressing, but with a lack of an ultimate goal in each shoot besides to come home with something awesome.

I spent hours going through these images, breathing life to them a second time and also brought a new life to myself and what I need to do to get where I want to be. Yes I’ve been successful at what I’ve done, but I am my own worst critic and still believe I have too many faults in my work in order to be a great photographer. Like the images I edited I to can give life to a new vision and reenergize myself in order to improve and further myself in the photographic world. I honestly believe anyone who is in a field of art needs to go back and tweak things and see the story buried within their old works. I’ll hopefully continue this technique into the many years to come so you’ll most likely see yearly trips back to some of these images as technology and tastes continue to change.

I didn’t have a set path on what I edited except that when I flipped through something and it caught my eye then I would pull it into aperture and begin to play. This led to me reading new tutorials on editing and actually taught me knew things that I had no idea about before I even started this project. I’m really excited about some of the techniques and will hopefully begin to hone them while I play with images.

After editing a few dozen images I found myself on a hunt to gather more works and even started to redesign my website, create a new logo just for my modeling work and learn some new CSS and HTML that I had either forgotten or never even glanced over. A pretty productive Christmas break away from the best job ever.

Yet another habit I picked up while going through this whole adventure was studying the works of the photographers I admire and hope to meet one day. I think Christmas Eve had about 6 hours of continuous web searching and inspiration finding alone besides all the sleep and eating that was performed. I have to admit that I have a long way to go before I’m a great photographer but I do know that I’ll enjoy most of it and can’t wait to see what I’ll be shooting and how I’m shooting it in 10 years.

Well, time to go back to Ghostbusters and Chico plus it may be bed time for this guy. Hope you all had a marvelous Christmas and don’t forget to think of a resolution for the new years! Goodnight