Date:

My New Year's Resolution (not 1280 x 1024)

Thu
1 Jan 2015
Happy new year everyone. On the 2nd of January I go away for a two week road-trip around Spain and Morocco, so you won't hear from me for a while. I'm currently up to my eyeballs in packing, and completing various business-related tasks which must be completed before I leave, so I only have time to write a short post. It being New Year's Eve, the easy option when deciding what to write about was my new year's resolutions.
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Hope the hangover isn't too bad (photo hurriedly taken at 20 past midnight when I realised I had no photo to illustrate New Year's Eve and a glass of champagne in my hand)
There's no reason why, if I feel that I would be better off doing something, I should wait until the new year to do it. However at the moment it's a fairly quiet time of the year, with clients in retail not commissioning photography around Christmas time, and conference season being more in spring and summer. For this reason it is in December that I sit down and plan what I'm going to do for the following year; also for this reason, when I go on holiday it is usually in winter, where I can recharge my batteries and find inspiration through travel.

Here are my new year resolutions for business for 2015:
  • Keep blogging, I've done well in the last few months after letting things slide for too long, so just keep that up.
  • Make my blog posts a little more approachable and a little less 'ranty'.
  • Work out what Google+ is for.
  • Take more photographs that people are going to relate to and enjoy, in the last few months of this year I've learned that it is very rewarding to have a website where you can show off the photographs that you're really proud of while still selling your business.
  • Don't turn down any opportunities to travel
  • Pick up direct-marketing again. I dropped it from my marketing plans in the past, because it wasn't working. What was happening was I was sending the wrong messages to the wrong people. I was trying to give a sales pitch via the medium of a flyer, which doesn't suggest quality. I've learned a lot since I last did any kind of direct marketing and now I realise it has to be better directed, go towards people who are already aware of your existence, and more about quality speaking for itself, than about trying to tell people how you can help them.
I must admit I have no real 'must do this or this' type 'photography' resolutions. Things have been going pretty well for me in that respect this year. I get get opportunities to travel, I also started to photograph more local events and enjoyed every minute of it, and my photography improved. I feel I have a more consistent style now than I did this time last year so my hope for 2015 are just for more of the same please.

Wishing you the best of luck for 2015, touch wood I'll have some great photos of my holiday to share in a few weeks



Blog Self Portrait
Articles about photography, tips and tricks, insights into the world of commercial photography and the marketing industry from a photographer's perspective, and the occasional humorous rant. Brought to you by Will McAllister, a commercial photographer based in God's own county of Cumbria.

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