I love my wife and spend time with her, run a small specialized consulting firm, do volunteer work, play with Sparky (he’s very demanding!), try to stay connected to my grown-up children, tend to my grandchildren when called, stay in touch with friends, walk five miles a day, teach, deal with a serious stereo habit, read, write a weekly blog entry, get together with other photographers and yes … also photograph and print.  The biggest time sink of course is work.  Fortunately running things provides some flexibility but there are a lot of hours. As you can see I don’t have a tremendous amount of time available to photograph and print, but that doesn’t mean I’m not serious about my photography. Nothing could be further from the truth!  The fact of the matter is that at this stage of my life I have a found a balance, that while not perfect (perfect would be that I was retired and really had time!) works for me.

So what’s really important is that the time spent making photographs and printing them be worthwhile. In other words, an acceptable percentage of keepers that yield a number of satisfying prints, so at the end of the year I can sit back and say yes, I had a good year.

Ansel Adams said, “Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop”. Of course what is “significant” is a subjective thing.  What is significant to me might be considered by others as also rans or not even relevant in today’s world.  Given a sense of vision and a level of competence, what matters is that they are significant to you!

According to the Ansel Adams Gallery, over his lifetime Adams “made many, many negatives, and printed or published approximately 1500 images”. Now I don’t expect to be competing with the Master in this lifetime anyway, but that isn’t the point.  The point is that I get out there whenever I can and do my best to produce work that speaks to me and meets the standards I have set for myself.   If others get the same feeling of enjoyment I do when I look at my prints that is all well and good … if not, that’s all right too.

Having said all of this, I think I had a nice little year.  I know there are at least ten images that are “significant” to me.  Not a bad output at all. Significant to me may not be what Adams had in mind. No problem because I don’t care!  I’m happy in my work and continue to do it.  And when more time becomes available I’ll continue to do it more.

As we venture into 2020, I’m planning on having another nice little year and here’s hoping you have one too!