Do you make them? I never have, unless you count the occasional “I should do something with these childhood/wedding/honeymoon/vacation photos” thoughts as such. I don’t consider them to be goals, more like “maybe one day when I have free time” wishful thinking.
Goals vs. rainy day projects. There’s a difference.
I thought about this a lot as I reflected on what I accomplished in 2012. Last year I took 13,246 photos but only managed to make 8 scrapbook layouts, 2 photobooks and occasionally add entries to our project life album (only 65% completed). While I’m happy with what I did accomplish, I can’t help but think that I could have done more. So I’m setting a creative goal this year.
My goal is to establish and maintain an efficient photo workflow. I have a system in place now and there are some things I like about it (like dates are automatically added to the file name during import), but overall, my system needs an overhaul. I’ll go into details of my workflow in a separate post. For now I just want to say I’m excited. The OCD side of me is excited. The creative side of me is excited. All in all I’m excited.
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I asked the creative team to share their goals and this is what they said.
Elisa Hubbard – For me, I’d really love to incorporate more journaling into my pages, (& feel more confident doing so), even if it’s just a sentence or two. Honestly I hate writing, but I love having a few pages thrown into my albums that make you stop a little longer to read what’s happening. This is probably my biggest goal since I know I have enough photos & I already try whatever styles strike my fancy, (doesn’t mean I’m good at too many other styles, but I don’t let that scare me away from a technique out of my comfort zone). So Journaling. Storytelling. Recording. These are my tops for 2013 I suppose. Plus I’m still going to continue with my Project Life & even there I’m trying to add a little more journaling than I did when I first started Dec 2011.
I guess I really just want to find my voice.
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Sue Falstaff – For me, I’d say my number one goal for 2013 is to try and improve my photography skills. I’ve owned my Nikon D60 camera for 2 years now and it’s the first “big girl” camera I’ve owned (all my previous cameras were the point & shot type). I very rarely use it in full auto mode but at the same time, I haven’t yet used it in full manual mode either! The vast majority of my photos are taken in either A (AV) or macro mode and whilst I’m happy with the results, I know there’s so much more I can achieve if I can just get to know my camera a little better. Let’s face it, unless I get to grips with manual mode, I may as well have stuck with a P&S camera anyway! For Christmas, my brother gave me 2 books about digital photography and they both have some interesting assignments to try out. So with a little patience and lots of practice, 2013 will hopefully be the year when I finally go manual.
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Jippo – Goal: Tell A Story. I want to do more journaling. I tend to shy away from it because I always feel my texts are a bit corny… Another one is to be more mindful, both in real-life as well as picture-taking and scrapping is concerned.
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Leora – My goal is to just scrap! Life is keeping me so busy, all the more reason to document it all. I need to just make the time!
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Crystal – My goal is to change my approach and focus on albums/photos, not just pages. Change is my OLW and as so many things are changing in our life next year I just feel like with a new baby on the way it would be so nice to have albums and not just random pages, like I actually prefer to do. As the years are going by I am realizing how I do feel sad that I don’t have chronological albums and things. Changing my whole outlook for 2013.
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Lisa – I have many goals for 2013, but I think my top priority is to get organized and make time for all the things I want to do and create. Life is busy, priorities get scattered, and it is so easy for creativity and ‘me time’ to get lost in the shuffle. In 2013 I’m going to strive to set aside a bit of time just for myself and my projects several times a week, even if I can’t quite manage it every day!
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Tina Azsmus – My creative goal is to stay focused + organize and STAY ORGANIZED!! I really want to start working in my office away from all the noise like the tv. It gets me nowhere. I’m also in the process of a huge purge of supplies. It weighs me down and takes up precious space in my home. Once that’s done, I’ll start the organization process. If I can stick to these 2 things, I think I can manage to actually finish tasks rather than having a bunch of half done projects and “wish I would have” moments.
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Nicole LeBlanc – My goal is to take natural photos that I don’t have to spend a lot of time editing in Photoshop. I resolve to learn how to shoot in Manual Mode. Here is my photo (taken in P mode :-))
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Emilie Ahern – I want to embrace ALEIDA’S CHALLENGE and never miss a month in 2013. I think it is so important to get in front of the camera with our children so we leave them visual proof that we lived and loved.
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Brenda Smith – Making goals is always hard for me since I seem to always set them so high that I can never reach them. This year I am trying my best to keep it simple. The plan is to simplify my life. Less mess, less stress, more time with my children. I want to try to get more photos of my son this year, too. With him in school and the girls at home all day I have way to many photos of them and not enough of him. 
Plus the goal that a lot of people have now of getting in more photos with their kids. I did ok this year with the girls but I want more of all of us.
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What would you like to accomplish in 2013? Take more photos? Focus on storytelling? Explore different styles? Get your supplies organized?
I’m excited for you to share your new process because doing something with my photos is something that I struggle with as well as something I would like to accomplish this year. Goal-wise I want to go and print photos from the past several years that have been languishing on my computer and then actually do something with the photos that I do have printed.
I had planned on getting my photographs completely organized last year. This year, it will get done and I can’t wait to see what your flow is. I have no idea how to even begin and I have a lot to organize. One day at a time!
I had the same plan Elizabeth. Labeling and tagging photos, adding dates to old photo files, merging all my LR catalogs (I used to do one for each year) into one.
The hardest thing to keep up with was the photo tagging because I put too much pressure on myself to tag everything. I created so many tags, I’d forgotten what tags I had. Totally counterproductive. I’m simplifying that system significantly and only using labels that I know I need and will use often. Excited to share!
One day at a time, definitely. We’ll get there. 🙂
[…] I’ve publicly stated one of my Creative Goals in 2013 over at Liz’s blog today, (Pailee Press). It can be noted each of the above resolutions(?) […]
my son was born in 2008 & i have yet to make one photo book (except a photo book with his art work from 2011) my goal this year is to make at least 2 photo books plus organize all his school stuff (he is in his second year of preschool) i take so many photos & they stay stuck in my computer that my husband hasn’t even seen 90% of them. how sad is that???
2 photobooks this year is a great goal! Don’t beat yourself up for “just” having that one artbook done – that’s one more than most people. 🙂 Plus, you’ve kept up with taking photos which is more than most people can say too. Have fun photobooking this year! 🙂
I have so many creative goals for 2013! Cook more, design my own Project Life cards, do OLW, journal better, always improve my photography. So excited for what 2013 brings!!
cooking more is on my list of things to do this year too!
I stayed up with PL in 2012 {which is amazingly surprizing to me! lol.} I used only your kraft/doily cards for journaling, and I’ll tell you what – that was a life saver. I had three options and I had to choose one of them. Cut down on so much fuss. I still plan on using them, but this year, my goal is to make actual ones {real paper doilies} and to get more colors in my album. I love all your cards and am inspired to embrace a little more color in my minimalism. lol.
I know this is so old school. But I download my photos into month folders on an external harddrive. There isn’t any tagging, but it works and I would have been lost last year without this method. The properties have the date so I was able to check if I had a question. Totally simple, but it worked.
Loved this post!
A simple system is the best system, easy to maintain, easy to access, easy to use. Hooray also for staying on top of PL last year!! So happy that the kraft doily set worked for you!
With my OLW being PURSUE, I want to improve my blog. I work full-time out of the house, so my scrapping, crafting, photography and blogging times are limited to the evening hours. I recently read Blog Inc. which states that in order to get people to engage with you on your blog, you need to comment on others’ blogs and make connections. I am also noticing that the posts that others respond to are those that include a human element, the stories of life. Often I only have time to post what I have been doing creatively without any real ‘personal’ stories. This year my goal is to take time to write more on my blog at a personal level. Here’s hoping…
emily’s blog post made me cry and i know i am so guilty of not being in the photos. the only photo of me in my december daily album is a reflection in a silver gazing ball…it just makes me kind of sad. anyway, my goal/word for the year is thrift and i didn’t fully understand why until i began investigating the layers of meaning in the word. in a way, it means ‘all you need is less’ but in another way it is about inviting prosperity (i am not talking about money) and a valuable occupation of some description into my life. i have no idea where this is going to go but i am excited by the prospects of the journey.
I LOVE your goal for 2013. I spent the last 2-3 years working out my photography workflow and getting it up to date, and I’m now finally at the stage where all 70,000+ photos are sorted, rated and tagged. Maintaining on a weekly basis has become an easy habit too. It really does make all the difference in the world – you don’t feel overwhelmed/swamped by your photos and it makes all memory-keeping projects so much easier…
I’ve been thinking of launching a series of photography/memory-keeping workshops – that’s my creative goal for 2013! And funnily enough, I’m thinking of talking about photo management! 🙂 Great minds think alike. (Or at least we do.)
Love everything you do Liz!
Ronnie xo
I started last year to organize all of my photos but the system I started out with was too cumbersome and hard to maintain so I’m using a different approach for 2014. If it goes well, then I will work my way back and slowly get everything on the same track. So looking forward to reading your series – I completely agree with you, an efficient photography workflow is the foundation for a happy memory keeping experience. 🙂
It trips me out (in a GOOD way) that our way of thinking is so aligned in so many ways. It’s like a meeting of creative kindred spirits. Doesn’t happen that often and I’m so happy to have met you this past year. 🙂
Love love this post. I remember reading Aleida’s blog too when those photos were taken. I cried soon after. I never met her but shared the same thoughts. She touched my heart.
My goals are the same as Brenda’s. I am working to simplify my life, and I would like to be in more family photos with my kids and grandkids.
Great goals all around! Project Life seems so overwhelming to me, yet I find the photos everyone posts from their albums to be so inspiring. It certainly points to how wonderful it is to document our lives with family and friends. For 2013, I want to move away from family photography. I sort of fell into it, and it was fun and challenging at first (3 years ago), but now it feels old hat. This year, I’m doing a 52-week project of photographing my daughter in her outfits. 🙂 Also, the post about Aleida, as well at that recent post about the mom staying in the picture–really drove home that we need more of “us” with our kids/friends, etc. So, I’m also determined to do one photo monthly of me with my daughter.
Great post, Liz. Question – do you import into iPhoto? You mentioned “dates are automatically added to the file name during import” and I’ve been meaning to figure out how to do that. Maybe I need to change the settings on my camera. I’ve no clue, really. 🙂 I enjoy learning how other people go along, it helps me develop my own process.