We're halfway throught the year already somehow, which clearly means that it's a great time for reflection on the goals I made for this year. I'm not a new years resolution type person though. This was a goal I was determined to hit.

My goal(s) were simple. Learn to shoot gels and take some decent shots. That's all. While this sounds like a very low bar to set for myself, the plan was to shoot as much as possible. Sometimes two or three shoots a week. With a standard day job and editing ontop, it was going to take up a lot of time when I'm not asleep. 

I basically decided to dedicate the whole year to around 90% gelled portraits and creative gel photography, however you want to describe it.

The first couple of gel shoots were EFFORT! Not just in the shooting and editing, but the research beforehand, finding gear that wasn't going to bankrupt me (gels are more expensive than you think, especially when you need MULTIPLE sets!), and learning on set too. We all learn as we go of course, but with gels you have to see in a very different way to normal lighting to prevent colours from bleeding into each other, and a "correct" exposure for light levels and colour saturation. Then there's the shutter drag stuff. 1 in every 10 shots will be alright. You may pan the camera too far, or get a weird light streak on the model, etc. You get my point.

Having said that, I love learning new things. It's a massive achievement to see things actually come to life in front of you, with a level of repeatability that you can take onto other shoots, so it's been super rewarding.

Not only have I learned a tonne of new things, this new direction I've taken has gotten so much more attention. My work before was ok and got a bit of notice but there was nothing about it that really gave me my personality. It just got lost in the sea of photography. Now, I'm getting messages daily from new models that wana work together, people telling me they love my work, and I have an actual identify that stands out from the crowd. Just little things that didn't seem to make a difference before, but now it's refreshing. 

I wasn't really sure on what to expect progress wise from this little goal though. I'll show you a little progress from the end of Januray to now and you'll see how much better my stuff has gotten. It's the focused intention and dedication that has really done it I think. I don't expect my work to get better at the same rate as the past 5 months, but that's ok. 1% better each shoot makes a huge improvement over time!

If any of you are wishing they started a focused intention project (I just made that up), then do it! Don't wait for the new year to come around to start. There's still five and a half months of the year left. Just imagine how much you can improve by putting in as little as 2 hours a week! That's 50 hours by the end of the year!

Anyways, here's 2 shots, 5 months apart: