Hello 33
I should’ve done this yesterday, whoops
Yesterday was my 33rd birthday. It was a pretty chill day as it usually is. I went to work and then headed over to my parents’ for my birthday dinner, and then I got myself my birthday ice cream. Friday is the actual celebration. There’s an open mic and I’ll be celebrating my birthday then.
A lot happened photography-wise during my 32nd year of life. I feel like I really committed myself to trying to master a focal length (33mm, now 27mm). I finally found an editing style for myself that I liked, and I started having more paid photography gigs, which is awesome. Additionally, I also settled on a camera brand (for the right now, anyway), which is Fujifilm. I know everyone says Sony is the superior camera brand, and while I don’t argue that its autofocus is top tier, I can’t stray away from Fuji colors. Also, I’m just too deep in the ecosystem right now. I have:
A Fuji X-H2S (main camera)
A Fuji X-T5 (backup camera)
Viltrox’s 27mm f1.2
Fuji’s 33mm f 1.4
Fuji’s 50mm f2
Viltrox’s 75mm f 1.2 (my baby)
Fuji’s 18-55mm zoom lens (will be getting rid of soon, the 16-55 II is toooo nice.)
Yeeahhhhh, I’m too deep in it to quit. Even if I wanted to sell my gear to move to Sony or even Canon, I don’t know what I could get. If I sold everything I’d probably get one Sony body, so nah. Between the price point and colors, I’m sticking with Fuji.
Anywho. Enough about gear. What I want to focus on for my next year is maybe getting a bit deeper into photography. What I mean by that is right now I’m primarily attending open mic shows, conferences, other creative events as a photographer. Over the next year, I want to deepen my photography knowledge, photography theory. I have a book I need to put out by the end of the year. I think I want to do a photography project and maybe have another exhibition. Like, I have a sense that I want to be thinking deeply about photography as a practice. If someone asked me about my photography practice, my approaches to photography, what themes are present in my work, how my background influences my photography…I don’t know if I have those answers. If someone asked me to write an artist’s statement about my photography, I’d probably freeze up.
Maybe my goal for the next year is to create a thoughtful artist’s statement about my photography, and maybe doing more projects can help with that.
There is a photojournalism project I’m interested in doing. Just need the time and motivation. And money. I’d be out the community to create it, which would be great.
But anyway. Those are my goals, I think. Think deeply about photography as a practice, build an artist’s statement for myself, put out that darned book(!!!), and complete a photojournalism project.
I’m done talking. It’s 6:28 and I have to go to the gym. 👋🏾
