What are your railroad photography goals for 2011? When I don’t set goals, it feels like the year just flies by without very much to show for it. The more goals I set and accomplish the better I feel after the year zipped by. Setting goals is defiantly a balancing act. If I set too many goals, I feel like I am always behind the gun. Every other thought of every minute is about what I need to get done. Giving up is just too easy of an option that I don’t want to take. Goals that are to big are just not taken seriously and takes away from my focus of goals that I could actually accomplish. The right balance of goals keeps me driven and keeps me moving forward at a productive pace. At the end of the year I feel like I accomplished much more than I even realized and get the needed self satisfaction to keep me going.
My goals are not all yearly based. Many goals I have will take many years to complete, a couple even nearly a lifetime. It is good to have a healthy mix of goals ranging from short term to long term. Your completed short term goals will keep you satisfied and make you feel like your on the right path forward where you long term goals will keep your drive focused on keeping forward progress.
I keep most of my goals in my head but I really should have a list wrote down for myself. Something I can physically look at and add to. My recent travels to the Powder River Basin in Wyoming this January was one of my mid term goals. The goal to capture the coal operation in winter was about three years old. One of my newest long term goals of capturing the different and sometimes abundant abandonments around the railroads was also touched on when I was in Wyoming.
Here is a list of a few of my goals –
Get a taste of railroading in West Virginia
Photograph the remaining steel mills.
Soldier Summit
Visit the railroads of western New Mexico
See the Detroit area
Add to my portfolios
Sell more images
Publish a large print run book
Add much more portraitures to my railroad photography
Subways of New York
Storms
Soo Line
This is just a taste of my goals and the amount of time and money to complete these goals will probably be the biggest obstacle for me. A few of my goals will be very challenging and even dangerous while luck and right place right time will factor into the remaining ones. What are your goals?