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At the end of every year I look back on the last 12 months and wonder how I got through so much time and achieved so little.  The older I get the more important that becomes!

As it happens I’ve just finished reading the Steve Jobs Biography, so my thinking about 2012 is very much affected by what I’ve read, particularly Steve’s zen-influenced principle of living simply, getting rid of distractions and focusing on a few things and doing them really well.  By contrast this past year I’ve felt burdened by distractions, apathy and lack of clear direction.  2011 was, for me, what I would describe as a ‘flatliner’… on an even keel but dull and unfulfilling.  I wonder how much of it was circumstantial and how much was affected by decisions I made, rightly or wrongly – If I’m honest I have to lay blame at the decisions made and the mental attitude I had at the time (surely our mental attitudes affect the decisions we make).  Some people would write it off as being the past but I want to see if I can make some purposeful decisions for 2012 while the memories are still clear.

For example, when I compare 2010, which was a great year, and 2011 side-by-side I can see that Flickr had a lot to do with my enthusiasm for photography so it’s a natural decision that I should spend more time on Flickr this year and less time on other sites.  Trying to get a whole lot of studio work off the ground was painful and downright dissapointing, not to mention costly.  The numbers didn’t add up so it makes sense to put that on the shelf for another period of time.

It feels ok to put everything down and pick up one or two that are really worth pursuing.

I often feel like I’m going against the crowd so as social networks peak and we spend more time online doing nothing of particular worth I feel like I’m the only one who gets frustrated by the futility of it.  I’ve had countless discussions this year with friends about that whole subject.  Actually I thought I was the only one until I had lunch with an artist friend yesterday.  She’s a real artist and sharply insightful as I rambled on about my desires to produce the kinds of images that I’m not capable of yet and how 2011 was a write-off.  She does what she does every year: helps me nail down my thinking and offers the kind of encouragement that only a like-minded artist can really give.  I like living at the intersection between the arts and technology (as Steve Jobs would say), and I’m becoming more comfortable with beating out my own path and not having regrets that I don’t fit into the “build your brand on Facebook” mould (I’m sick of feeling guilty that I haven’t turned myself or my God-given talents into a brand yet).  It’s been liberating this past week to ditch online accounts and other distractions that don’t add value to my life.  I think it’s ok not to use every social network or (insert “next big thing”) going because ultimately you end up becoming part of the background noise and no different to everyone else.

As a tech-engineer I want to stay up-to-date, adopt global standards and be as good at my job as I can be.  As an artist I want to be different, and better than I was last year.

So these are my thoughts at the end of 2011 as I put into action decisions people would probably tell me are foolish.  But as Steve Jobs said in his famous Stanford address, “Stay hungry, stay foolish”.

One of those times was almost 2 years ago when I had the concept of a couple of ducks at the end of a bath time, heading home after another job well done.  I was a bit embarrassed to post it to Flickr and wasn’t overly happy with how it was processed, it’s predominantly a white image and I have real thing about artifacting and overblown highlights so it just wasn’t good enough for me.

So here we are 2 years later and I’m going through the archives because I have a new iMac and what I see on screen is much more accurate than the Macbook Pro I previously owned.  I have this image that I tweak and post to Flickr, go to bed and think nothing of it.  To my surprise it turns out to be a big hit on Flickr, managing to get explored status and peaking at no.31 for the 29th November.  To date it’s had 600 views and 40 favourites, in less than 2 weeks – it’s taken some of my images 2 years to get those kinds of views.

And there was me thinking it was a lame duck.

6 months ago I decided to host my website content via a relatively unknown site called 500px.  It’s a great looking site for high-end and fine art photography, slightly out of my league but I loved the idea that someone else had put all the work in to designing and building a platform for me to use.  They even promised to have blogging up and running soon (to individual ‘sites’ to be precise as they already have blogging within the 500px site).

That promised blogging never arrived and my domain dropped right out of Google search rankings from a relatively secure 4th place.  Ouch.

So I learnt a few things:

1. You can’t be successful off someone else’s hard work.

If someone else puts in a lot of hard work why should you gain from their effort?  The developers of 500px have put in time, effort and money in building the site.

Their site.

It was lazy of me to think that I could piggy-back off their work and still maintain my Google ranking.  Actually there’s a more fundamental life lesson at stake here – hard work pays off.

2. Being liked on a social network is relatively worthless.

Everyone has a Facebook Page these days, it’s become a cliche to have a camera and setup a Facebook Page.  Social networks are not an end in themselves, they’re just a vehicle to that end.  It’s a bit like a billboard advertising your product, no-one goes to a a billboard advert to buy clothes, if an ad is successful people will be engaged enough to go find the shop and buy the clothes.  The key here is engagement – marketeers will tell you that it’s worth having a social page even if only a handful of your customers like it.  I’m not convinced.  I’ve twice started a Facebook Page for my photography and after the initial buzz of 1, 2, 3, 15, 25, 30, 40 likes the growth tailed off and it became a bit of a chore updating a page that people “liked” but probably weren’t that interested in once the next page was recommended to them.

I often ask myself why I’m doing something, it’s become a useful way of evaluating productivity versus ego.  I’m always trying to create images that stand out from the crowd and part of that process involves my ego and need for self-worth because it’s all mixed up in that big thing called persona.  There is undeniably something narcissistic about social networking, we all want to be respected, appreciated, even loved for who we are and what we do.  Facebook “likes” (especially when we know most of the likers) are akin to a loving parent who we constantly show our finger paintings to.  They love us so of course they love our work.  In the harsh reality of the world this does nothing more for your efforts than massage the ego and comfort sensitivities.  If your time is valuable, and let me give you a tip that it is, don’t be held back by what your friends and family are probably already willing to affirm you of.  Which leads me to the next point…

I prefer to utilise my time for maximum result per effort.  In other words, my website and Flickr pages were getting a lot more views and interaction than my supposedly engaging Facebook Page.  It’s wasn’t worth the effort, it was… relatively worthless.  In monetary terms I didn’t make a single penny out of it yet it cost me time and effort.  I still post photos to my personal Facebook wall and it feels nice when people leave comments and likes.  I feel loved and happy which is distinct from a potential client who, via my website, will pay me money to take photos.

3. Not everything fits.

500px is an amazing site.  I use the iPad app to view the latest images every day , it’s inspiring stuff.

But it doesn’t fit me or my photography.

For a start it’s probably out of the interest of my potential clients – as a photographer I’m always looking upwards (metaphorically) for inspiration from photographers and images sites that are out of my league. Which I think it healthy because I’m on a journey with my own photography and hopefully one day I will be in that league and be an inspiration to others.  It comes back to effort again too, we are so caught up with all our social and sharing sites that it becomes an endless cycle of effort that robs us of focus.  I keep coming back to two things: my Flickr page and my own website, I’ve tried various other things but I’m getting quicker at dropping the things that don’t fit me or my work.

So that’s why I think as a photographer it’s important to have your own website.  If you just need appreciation then Facebook is probably right for you but if you’ve read this far then you’re probably worth more than that.

What better way to kick things off than introduce myself with a self portrait!