New goals

Time to set a new goal! Now that summer is over, it's becoming increasingly difficult to stay motivated when it comes to taking photos (among other things!). In an effort to regain some momentum, Geoff has convinced me to commit to taking at least one photo per week for the next year. The hope is that a potw challenge will serve the same purpose for my photography that a gym buddy would for exercise. By committing publicly to a goal, I should be more inclined to take my camera out of it's bag, even when I'm feeling too lazy to do so. I've recommended the same for Geoff, but apparently having already completed this challenge a few years ago gives him the right to rest on his laurels for a little while (his potw challenge photos can be found here).

In addition to the motivational aspects, this project should also help me improve in a number of other ways. First, by taking more photos I should be able to improve my technical skills simply because of the extra practice. I will also be forced to try new techniques and to be more creative in my subject matter (ie, hopefully you won't have to see too many last-minute snapshots of my cat). Most importantly though, I'm hopeful that the need to post at least one photo per week will help me to become slightly less critical of my photography, since I won't have time to obsess as much over small details like I do now.

So, on that note, any good challenge needs a few rules. Mine will be: I'll post one photo per week to this blog for the next year with the label potw (though I'm hopeful that I'll generally post more than one photo during some weeks!). I'll consider a week to consist of Monday-Sunday and a photo posted on any of those days will count as part of that week. This means that I don't intend to regularly post on any particular day, but there should be at least one post per week. Finally, I'll be considering the challenge to have started yesterday. This means that I now owe you a photo, which I intend to deliver by the end of this week. Check back later!