Looking ahead into 2009

First up, a belated 'Happy New Year' to you all! I hope you all had a great Christmas and have by now suitably recovered from your New Years Eve hangovers!

As for getting back to work, I decided to ease into things gently, and have been taking care of all those little things that tend to catch you out if left too long. And with the weather outside being completely uninspiring today, I thought I'd take the opportunity to get a few thoughts down about what this year holds in store.

With all this talk of the economic climate crashing around our feet and the doom and gloom which it brings, the only way to move forward is surely to be positive and look ahead. In much the same way that us photographers have had to seek new angles in our marketing efforts (think Blogger, YouTube, Flickr etc), I think the key message for this year is that we need be very open to the idea of making changes and to diversify. Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about abandoning our usual 'bread and butter' work or making radical changes to our approach to workflow - just that we should be open to exploring avenues that, say, a year ago would not necessarily have been a consideration.

So, what will I be doing? Well, it's back to basics for me - simple light and simple kit. As many of you will know, I've never been one for complex post-production work and I certainly don't intend to start now. Call me a traditionalist, but I like to get things as close to how I want them at the time of capture. Therefore, I'm going to continue concentrating on good, solid lighting and the use of good old-fashioned principles relating to interacting with one's subjects rather than relying too heavily on technology.

For this reason, you will no doubt see plenty of mention of the gift Father Christmas brought me - a no-frills, bare and basic 50mm Nikkor prime lens. I've already been playing around with this and I have to say it is a fantastic little piece of kit. Combined with good, crisp lighting, it's a win-win combination. More to come shortly.

Of course, this is the time of year when people typically let fly about resolutions - how they are going to do this, do that, make this change, make that change. Modest or not-so-modest alterations, in order to better themselves, their life or their business. Well, I've never been one for these resolutions - maybe I'm just lucky enough to feel I already have the balance right all year round? That said, I do have a list of things that I intend to do, both in the short term and the long term. As such, this list is a 'work in progress', but currently looks something like this, and in no particular order:

• Relaunch our monthly newsletter in its new format
• I really must get those new business cards sorted out!
  
• Write more regularly on the GBP Blog
• Extended networking - locally and online
• Revisit past clients with updates of our latest services
• Approach new 'key market' clients
  
• More joint collaborations, across various industries
• Produce more personal work, regularly. Therefore...
  
• Get personal projects underway

So as far as I can tell, then, it's going to be a busy year!

Have you got similar lists on the go? If so, chip in and tell me what you're planning to do - you never know, we might just find some common ground!