I’m sure everyone makes New Year’s resolutions at one time or other. I for one always make a list of goals in my personal life and professionally. Starting the new year off with some new goals can be a good thing.
Right before the beginning of last year, I wrote down my photography goals.
Continuing Education – I have been taking classes, working towards a degree. I decided in the fall of 2009, that I would not take any classes for a year. I would focus on improving my photography skills.
365 Project – I wanted to start my photography 365 project. So I started searching for the right service to host my daily photos. I wrote about my 365 project on December 26th. I just completed a year posting a photo a day at Blipfoto.com.
Be better prepared to sell my art cards and prints. I sold some cards and prints in a local gift shop in 2009. That was the good news, but some items didn’t sell and ended up on their clearance rack later. If I had been better prepared, maybe I would have checked on them and offered some other shots that might have had a chance to sell. Who knows, but I learned from it and decided I would not take my work out until I was fully prepared.
Last year I managed to get everything I need to mat and frame, my own images. I found the right vendors and suppliers. I have prints and art cards in two local shops.
Online Gallery - When I was off during Christmas last year (2009), I had some time to begin developing my photography website. I tried a service called Photo Shelter and developed a blog around it. Though I liked the service, the cost was a little steep for me and I later dropped the service. It was taking me too long to configure. It was also a bit of an overkill for what I need right now.
In the meantime, I had some people asking me where they could purchase my work. So I signed up for Redbubble and Esty. Redbubble was to be a temporary place that I could sell my work without cost or a lot of effort. Etsy was going to be the place where I could sell my art cards and some prints. My Redbubble Shop was up and running pretty quickly, but My Etsy Shop is still not complete. Though I have the product now to stock it, I have some minor details with shipping packaging to work out.
Between my Redbubble account and the local shops, I managed to sell my products over the Christmas season. I sold several calendars directly to people I know, as well.
My main website is now powered by Zenfolio. The service is great and the products ship quickly. I am still working on getting my monitor calibrated better, but I’m a lot closer now. I recently added the ability to to sell matted prints as well as my art cards.
Marketing & Social Media – Though I’ve been personally involved in social media for a few years, I wanted to shift the attention from my web design background to photography. I managed to change directions while still maintaining my online identity. I did start a business Facebook page for pddesigns Images.
For 2011 I have already set up a new list of my photography goals I want to work on. I’m hoping to get started with them right away!
I’d be interested to hear if you have set your own photography or business goals for the New Year. Feel free to leave me a comment.
You have some great goals here, Pat!
Hope you have much success in 2011!
Thank you Deb! I wish you success this year too!