Abstractions for 2022

Happy new year, everyone! Logically, I know January 1st is just a single day out of 365 of them, but seeing that bright, shiny year ahead sure feels like a fresh start to me. Without getting bogged down in resolutions, I have a few goals that I hope will help me to build on any successes I had last year.

Read more, offline

I’ve gotten pretty good at limiting my time on social media, but most of my consumption is still online or in ebook form. If you know my husband and me, you know we have an awesome library here, which I fully intend to make better use of this year. And let’s face it, some things are just better in print.

I don’t romanticize the printed book like a lot of people I know, but the brain does process physical materials much differently than those on a screen, and the experience of moving through an art or photography book is wholly different than viewing a portfolio online. I love seeing design choices and trying to understand what the author is saying through pacing and sequencing of visuals. And I know that I need more forms of input to keep my creative fires burning, so that’s priority #1.

Move more, everyday

I’m a fairly active person, at least by American standards, but I’ve been working a lot more over the past few months and have slacked off on daily exercise as a result. I intend to walk more and explore more of this town; if not the eight-mile loops with nearly 1k-foot elevation I prefer, maybe a more reasonable five. New Jersey gets a bad rap in a lot of ways, but this area is gorgeous and loaded with hiking trails. When it gets warmer, I look forward to getting back to mushroom hunting and meeting up with some local foraging groups to learn more about it. 

Shoot more, weekly

“Do something you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” I’m calling bullshit. I love what I do and couldn’t be more grateful that I was able to transition into this area of photography after I’d already had one less-than-fulfilling career, but the business of photography can be a hard slog. I still learn something new everyday by reading articles or watching videos by amazing retouchers, but actually getting in the studio to shoot a personal project happens too infrequently. And it’s a shame, because the joy I get from creating something without a commercial purpose just lights me up. 

Even my experimentation in the studio tends to be client-focused. How do I light this glossy object to increase the odds of a sale? How can I style this boring dish to make it visually appealing? What kind of story can I tell in a single frame to form a compelling home page? But creating art? Well, that’s another story. But I managed something like it last week. 

I combatted that inertia by playing in my home studio with no clear direction beyond a loose idea, water and oil, one light, some gels and an acrylic cube. Seeing what I could make with that stripped-down set of materials brought me more pure joy than I’ve experienced in the studio in a while.

Oddly enough, it also helped me to add another new category to my website, even though that never was the goal. I always do big updates at the beginning of every quarter and already planned to put up a Motion gallery, but I loved these abstract images so much that they now live in a Projects gallery where I’ll show images that don’t naturally align with any of the other categories, and are more personal in nature.

After closing my Etsy shop in 2020, I’m thinking that maybe I’ll start selling prints again through my website, starting with this series. If you’re interested, or know someone who might be, drop me a line. Setting up a shop is a time-consuming task, so it’ll help me to prioritize my ever-growing list of projects if there seems to be a demand for it.

What are you up to? Any plans of your own for the new year?