A few days late… but here are my New Year’s resolutions

1.  Finish my new website with the fabulous people over at Livebooks and get that puppy launched.  A few days ago I prepared for the launch of my new site by playing around with some of my domains.  I was using goslingphotography.com on my blog whilst my site was being built.  I went ahead and bought the url goslingphotographyblog.com and have pointed my servers to point that domain to my blog.  Once my site is finished I will launch it with the now free goslingphotography.com domain.  I can’t tell you how freaking excited I am for my new site to launch.  I have already picked my design and prepped some pretty little pieces.  Now we are just getting the contact and information pages sorted out and we’ll be good to go!

2.  Charitable shooting.  A few months ago I contacted the good people at Flashes of Hope.  Flashes of Hope are a non-profit organization that shoots portraits for sick children and their families for free.  Over a few emails we agreed for me to come on the organization as a portrait photographer for the DC Metro area.  I am however to shoot my first assignment for them and that is one thing I am going to be working on this year!

3.  Shoot more for my portfolio!  As well as being a wedding photographer (which I absolutely love doing!) I am also a freelance portrait photographer.  I have a separate website for my portrait assignments where I specialize in shooting headshots for actors and creating unique portraits for varied clients ranging from professional athletes, musicians and models to chefs, architects and business owners (goslingphoto.com).

4.  Get some new pieces of equipment.  There are a couple of pieces that I have had my eye on for a while now.  First and foremost I am looking to pick up some faster glass, in the range of a 50mm f1.2 and an 85mm f1.2 (very excited to get these two this year!).  Secondly I am going to be adding a ringflash to my lighting setup for editorial portraits and also a beauty dish to go along with my set of 5 softboxes.

5.  Shoot destination weddings!  This doesn’t mean that I am going to be shooting weddings in the Dominican Republic or Hawaii all the time (although that would be pretty nice!).  It just means that I want to get a little more travelling done and if I happen to shoot a wedding whilst I am travelling around then hey; two birds one stone!  Be they in Massachusetts or Alaska or Mexico; nowhere is to close or too far away when it comes to taking great images!

6.  Blog more.  I love blogging.  I’m not sure how many people (if any) really read this thing but I really enjoy writing and posting to it so I will just keep on keeping on when it comes to this blog.  I am going to try to make sure I update the blog as many times a week as I can with new work and information about what is going on with me and Stephen Gosling Photography.

7.  Get me a Blackberry/Droid/iphone and fast.  I just need one of these things, enough said.

8.  Stop being lazy.  I am not the world’s best or fastest runner by any stretch of the imagination.  But I do love to run and I am going to make sure that make the time available to get out there and keep on running!  One of my problems is that I need goals to work to.  So I will be signing up for a few races throughout the year so that I always have a goal to work to and then keep up my running levels!

9.  Meet some more great people!  Being a photographer is awesome, there is no two ways about it.  There are long days and tough assignments but it is hands down one of the best things you can do with your life.  Being present for the best times in people’s lives (weddings, engagements, anniversaries, birthdays, etc…) or just making exceptional images of a person is a truly wonderful feeling and all I can really hope for is to keep meeting amazing people whilst taking their pictures.

Keep your eyes peeled for new blog posts, and I hope to meet you all very soon!