{"id":221,"date":"2025-01-02T15:27:59","date_gmt":"2025-01-02T15:27:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/100000grapes.com\/?p=221"},"modified":"2025-01-03T13:26:40","modified_gmt":"2025-01-03T13:26:40","slug":"thoughts-2-to-start-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/100000grapes.com\/?p=221","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts #2, To Start the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is going to be a bit of a ramble, but for myself it&#8217;s just helpful to get all these thoughts written down because the last few days have been relatively locked in but unfocused. And that&#8217;s fine because I&#8217;m new at this, and just starting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I started the new year taking around 60 photos of Boston Harbor to test out a new lens, the Nikkor Z 50mm f\/1.8S. I&#8217;m not seeing a material difference in quality or sharpness vs the 14-24S or 24-120S. I&#8217;m really pleased with those last two, and they were the first Nikon lenses I bought. This 50 is good, and portable, and produces a nice background separation up close. I might not keep it, two lenses will be enough and I can already get a 50mm focal length with one of the lenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I also took some shots I really was pleased with, but even today I know the composition could be better! So, more to review there. Otherwise, the year is off to a good start! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some things I know I&#8217;m going to need to do:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Develop hard-coded workflows\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Camera<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Import<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Lightroom Catalog<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Mac<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Editing<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Translating Lessons into Practice<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Organize lessons (Sources, Cadence, &#8216;saving,&#8217; showcasing)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Read the Nikon Z7II Manual and familiarize myself with operations<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Time Block based on initial organization<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;m self-teaching, which is disorganized by nature &#8211; I&#8217;m having to trust some things to start, and they might be wrong, and then I&#8217;ll have to revise. But I have a year! So here&#8217;s the initial plan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Use reference sources for lessons\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Websites or Online Communities\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>A year with my camera (weekly lessons, starting from very basic)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Reddit Photoclass (weekly lessons, for six months)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>52Frames (weekly prompts)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>BONUS: (Added 1\/3\/2025). I forgot that I have access to two Nikon courses. One is &#8220;Getting The Most Out Of Your Z 6II\/Z 7II&#8221; that came with my purchase, and the other is &#8220;Storytelling through Photography&#8221; a Nikon Mentors Class that was a holiday freebie. \n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Because these are free, I&#8217;ll start there. Moreover, I&#8217;ll be looking to the library for books once I&#8217;m done with the four I have!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Books\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&#8220;Digital Photography Complete Course&#8221; which is a 20 week program<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;National Geographic Photo Basics, The Ultimate Beginner&#8217;s Guide to Great Photography&#8221; which I&#8217;ll read at my own pace<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;Inner Game of Outdoor Photography&#8221; by Galen Rowell, on loan from my local library<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Outdoor Photography, by Erwin Bauer, 1965, given to me by my dad and I&#8217;ve had since I was probably 14. I have read and forgot this entire book. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Other saved books from the library and elsewhere. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Local Classes or Clubs\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>I&#8217;ll make mention of these as I do them! It&#8217;s a little more work to get involved here, so the progress will come later<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Not YouTube, not Social Media, Not Review Blogs, Not Vendor Blogs<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Practice\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Since Photography is my sole goal this year, I have time to shoot. I think the concern will be saving, importing, reviewing, and showcasing photos, and also writing about my process here. I&#8217;ll need to find a balance to all that. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In order to practice, I&#8217;ll be looking at 4 sources for weekly prompts, and it&#8217;ll be a lot. AYMC, Reddit, 52Frames, and the Digital Photography Complete Course. So that means I need to read, distill, plan, shoot, import photos, review photos, and showcase photos. (that&#8217;s my first workflow right there!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Review\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>I&#8217;ll probably have to look back at progress fairly regularly, maybe every four weeks? <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Look ahead\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>At some point before the 3rd quarter of 2025, I&#8217;ll need to start making inroads with connecting with people. Not there yet, and a big theme of this project is not to waste anyone&#8217;s time, so I&#8217;m only going to reach out once I feel like I can take the right photos I want, intentionally, and quickly. That&#8217;s part of being a pro is the &#8216;do it quickly&#8217; part. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Rest\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Maybe at the end of every quarter? I don&#8217;t know yet. I&#8217;ll see how I feel. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I also have other things in my life &#8211; I work, I coach, I workout a lot and have various fitness goals and obligations, and I have familial and social obligations. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So that&#8217;s a lot of thoughts. Here&#8217;s some more, mainly for me to reference at a later date. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Gear (I think I have enough!)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Filters<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Lightroom, Linkedin Learning, etc.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Making Binders<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Drones, Part 107<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Time-Lapse, Motion Control<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Astrophotography<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Low-Light<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Portraits<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Drawing Tablet<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Volunteering<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Reference Website<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Local Experts<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Mac, Shortcuts, Optimal Workflow, Automation, <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Indexing (master index? excel? linking files, folders?)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ultimately, I think the ethos I&#8217;m going with is that a good professional respects everyone&#8217;s time, including their own. So let&#8217;s hope I have enough of it initially, so that I can build smart workflows soon enough.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is going to be a bit of a ramble, but for myself it&#8217;s just helpful to get all these thoughts written down because the last few days have been relatively locked in but unfocused. And that&#8217;s fine because I&#8217;m new at this, and just starting. I started the new year taking around 60 photos [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[4,28,26,11,13,12,27,25],"class_list":["post-221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thoughts","tag-design","tag-lens","tag-lightroom","tag-photography","tag-planning","tag-progress-post","tag-thoughts","tag-workflow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/100000grapes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/100000grapes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/100000grapes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/100000grapes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/100000grapes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=221"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/100000grapes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":223,"href":"https:\/\/100000grapes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions\/223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/100000grapes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/100000grapes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/100000grapes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}