Kaden wrote a post over at Lost in Focus which helped give me a kick in the behind and force me to start posting again.

The actual post is here.

My response, follows:

I loved this thread… in fact it’s what made me get off my ass and start posting here after a mini break. Both the reminder that we’re halfway through the year and Raul / Kaden’s long list of accomplishments conspired to kick me into gear.

As for me, here were my original goals:

* Shoot more with Medium Format
* Take fewer pictures
* Take better pictures
* Finally get around to entering some competitions (and winning a few)
* Continue to write on this blog and expand Lost In Focus

I’ll go through them quickly:

* Shoot more with Medium Format
Yes! This worked out great .It seems such a trivial goal now but moving to film was a big deal for me, and then stepping up to MF (losing portability, flexibility and 25 shots per roll) was even harder. Once I did it though, I’ve not looked back. 35mm film has now become “point and shoot” – i love medium format. I originally started out with the Hasselblad that i had in my collection, and soon ended up purchasing a Pentax 67ii. Since I bought that, I can honestly (really, truly) say that I’ve not had a desire to buy another camera since. It is without question the best camera I’ve ever shot with and will never ever sell it (more likely, i’ll buy another one for backup). The great thing about medium format is that when I scan the negatives in my fairly low end Epson v700 at 3200 DPI, i get a huge, sharp, awesome 50 megapixel file. This allows me to crop at will or not crop and know that I’ll be able to print the size of a house should the occasion ever call for it.

* Take fewer pictures
This is working out well too. If I ignore the shots I take for dog rehoming / charity (which are mostly digital for convenience sake), then I’ve probably taken about 300 – 500 shots this year so far. This is about 10x less than I would normally have taken. For example, on my yellowstone trip I took about 150 images over 5 days. The two other photographers who had a 5D Mark II and a D3 between them, took roughly 3,000 each. But the point of this goal was not to shoot less often – but to shoot more deliberately. It was a means unto an end, rather than the end itself. The point was that I was supposed to be shooting better images. So – this brings me to my next goal

* Take better pictures
This is an interesting one and I can’t say right now whether i’ve accomplished this or not. I will say I’m taking better pictures more often – the benefit of slowing down and becoming more deliberate is definitely helping and I’m surprised to find that my keeper rate is increasing every time I put a new roll of film in the camera. I never expected that. I’ll also think that I’m on track to surpass my images from last year. But it’s still only halfway through 2010 and I have more travel and a lot more shooting to do yet. So the jury’s still out but things are looking good. Below is probably my favourite picture so far this year:

* Finally get around to entering some competitions (and winning a few)
OK so i ended up entering only one contest – the Sony World Photography Awards and I got an honorable mention. However, I’m going to change this goal. I always wonder why I never can motivate myself to enter more competitions and I think, deep down, it’s because I really don’t care. Instead I’m going to change this goal to another – and its related much more to the philosophical aspects of photography and what it means to and does for my life. I need more space to expand on this though so I’ll save that for my next post.

* Continue to write on this blog and expand Lost In Focus
Well, Lost in focus has definitely been expanding and doing great – with the addition of 4 new member this year (including Kaden who I now wonder how this site ever lived without :), and also some guest postings. I cant’ really take any credit here though as it’s you guys who keep doing the amazing things. I do want to write more about photography though and need to spend more time on this goal. It might not be till towards the end of the year but hopefully it’ll be worth the wait.

OK that’s all for now. Great idea Kaden posting this topic.