Amazing how one or two glasses of good red can change my photographic output - not always for the better.
Truly, I see resolutions I made myself in the past, in almost every post in this thread. Most of which I have recopied and carried over on my new NYR lists every January... I find great solace in the Buddha's saying that it is better to travel well than to arrive.
Anyway, on my 2024 list, here we go. Resolved to get rid of more gear I no longer use, downsize, sell maybe four little used cameras and buy one up to date one I can use with my collection of lenses. All Nikon, in my case. But then I check the Nikon Zf prices - or for that matter any price in the Nikon mirrorless range - in Australia, and think, wow... on to next year. Another resolution is to buy more lottery tickets.
Resolved to actually clean up the several thousand folders I have archived of all my Asian photographs since 1970, clean up, cull, keyword and caption, and set up the web site I so carefully maintained (for business clients only, mind you) until 2015 or 2016, and then gave up and let go.
Maybe loosen it up a little, add some text, a few travel stories, and open it up to casual viewers, not only stock photo clients.
Resolved to buy no more lenses, which I've managed to break every year since 2013. Last year's prize acquisition was a beaut Nikon D 300/4 in mint condition, it came my way via a private sale and at a price I thought I couldn't pass up. I do console myself with the thought that if I have to I can easily sell it for 2x-3x what I paid for it. But of course I won't, being me.
Resolved not to keep that 300/4 telephoto in my camera cabinet with the Nikon 180/2.8 and the 85/1.8 I bought with the same intent some years ago. The '85 has been used maybe four times and alas, regrettably, the '180 not at all. So two more resolves there, to be added to the list. Which is already much too long.
Resolved to actually visit countries in Asia other than the two or three I've hung out in since I retired in 2013. Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Sarawak, Sabah - admittedly the last three are all part of one country, Malaysia, but they are so distinctively different in all things that I've tended to regard them as three separate entities. I have long wanted to go back to Vietnam, Laos an Cambodia, notably to revisit Angkor War which I saw in the 1970s and have always wanted to return to, altho recent visitors there have told me it is now horribly commercial and as bad as Bali at its worst. Still, the lure is strong, time is passing, I'm older and I feel older and I fear the coming day when I realize my 'get up and go' has 'got up and went'. Already my Nikon D700s and D800s are getting too heavy for me to cart about, even with only one lens in a backpack which is how I best enjoy traveling.
Like Yokosuka_Mike I too think my photography has reached the point of being as good as it will ever get. I also have the nagging thought that maybe I've said everything I want to in my photography, and the time is approaching for me to either significantly slow down in my shooting, or retire from it altogether. I am now in what I reckon will be my last Five Year Plan in this life, after which time it will be the rocking chair, one of our house cats on my lap to keep me warm as well as company, and old movies of YouTube and newer movies on Netflix. Ditto good music on Spotify. Life has its limits and I may be there.
But then I think, my Five Year Plan means I have a few more years to pass the buck and delay the inevitable on all my resolutions to do with photography - and the rest. This thought greatly cheers me up and keeps me going.
