Every January, in addition to reviewing my favourite images from the previous year, I like to analyse the goals that I set myself for last year and knock up some targets for the year ahead. Some would say I'm mental for posting these online for all to see, but the way I see it is that once they're up, there can be no shying away from them. It makes it all the more important that I try and hit as many as possible - there's nothing worse than publicly humiliating yourself right? Having said that....... on perusing the respective post from last year, I've faired very badly indeed. In fact were this a school report I'd probably give myself a big fat "F" accompanied by "Neil can do so much better than this when he applies himself, and must try harder this year" in bright red ink.

So enough with the hyperbole and onto the minutiae.

Travel writing.
2013: I've put a great deal of thought over recent months into what I want to shoot, how I want to brand be perceived, who I'd like to work with and how I can strengthen my business. Being able to skilfully craft even a short travel story, I feel would hugely benefit not only me as a photographer but more importantly my business.
2014: I don't feel that I've progressed this particularly well. I still struggle putting pen to paper. I've never been much of a wordsmith and have generally outsourced any serious text that I've had to put together for press releases and the like. Even stringing a couple of sentences together for the blog can be painful. I have been diligently pursuing Julia Cameron's exercise, The Artist's Way in the mornings, but that only happens when I'm out of bed in time (for 5am). Whilst I feel that it has been and continues to be a very therapeutic exercise, I'm not sure how much the quality of my writing has improved.
Magazine cover & submissions.
2013: All part of the grand plan for this year that I'm currently in the process of putting together. I'd love to get some top quality magazine covers under my belt.
2014: I've had a couple of magazine articles published, most notably a feature in Jaguar World monthly but have fallen behind in the submissions department and still no covers.
Mentoring.
2013: Over the years I've done courses, attended numerous workshops and generally worked very hard in my own little bubble on my craft and I'm confident that I can perform well in most situations. So now I feel that it's time to get someone far more advanced than myself to help me get that 'edge' to my work in an attempt to rise above the competition.
2014: 100% failure here. I've been a qualified member of the Photo Guild for a few years now, but I still haven't taken them up on the option of mentoring. However between drafting and publishing this post, I have finally managed to progress this and submit images for critique. Just waiting to find out who my mentor will be.... Exciting....
Agent representation.
2013: If I'm to move more into the advertising, PR and marketing fields, which is the way I seem to be heading, I believe that in order to get the big clients I need to seek out an agent to represent me. Often the big clients won't pursue photographers directly but will use intermediaries such as agents in order to sift the wheat from the chaff. I want to be up there with the wheat!
2014: Pah! This I think was probably a little over ambitious at this stage in my career, so it's going on the back burner for a year or two.
Shoot more personal.
2013: Shooting more really isn't a problem, it's the editing time I have issues with.
2014: That old chestnut. I'm learning to streamline my workflow and it's definitely getting better. The backlog of personal work to edit is almost down to nil, almost. I still have a plethora of personal projects I want to pursue, but that I think is quite healthy. It's good to have ideas to fall back on when I'm feeling a little lacklustre.
Learn video?
2013: Still undecided with this one. I've been spending more and more time shooting short clips on my phone and sequencing them, adding soundtracks etc but professional quality video is a whole different ballgame. It's going to cost me, in time and in gear and I'm not entirely convinced that I need to add video to my arsenal but I love to learn new things. So this is a maybe.
2014: I've definitely taken a step forward with this. I haven't gone into producing video directly, but the timelapses that I've embarked upon are for sure a step in the right direction. Producing and combining series of short sequences has been a real eye opener and something that I will continue to learn. One of my primary reservations for not getting into this was the time aspect. I've found that it takes a minimum of 3 hours shooting time to get sufficient footage for a 30 second finished video sequence, and then the editing and processing time on top of that is probably the same again. I'm increasingly held back by the lack of processing power on my mid 2010 generation iMac, and finding that using another computer at the same time to perform more menial tasks whilst the other is crunching out renders is becoming the norm. Having already laid out a chunk of cash on dollies and controllers I foresee a more sizable splurge on a new powerhouse workstation in the not too distant future. Don't get me wrong, my iMac generally serves me very well when editing stills, but it's lack of extra cores, RAM and solid state drives is beginning to get on my nerves.
Structured marketing campaign
2013: I'm working on this at the moment, and have been since the turn of the year but it's no small task. All too often life and business gets in the way of proper planning, so I've been tending to find that this is easier to focus on out of hours. But "out of hours" doesn't really provide me with all that much time.
2014: I've come to the understanding that this will forever be a fluid and ongoing task. Whilst it's easy to pencil in ideas for the months ahead, things always crop up and force plans to change. The key is to "pencil in" as much as possible and then to be as adaptable as I can when needed. Obviously dates for the likes of Easter and Christmas campaigns don't change, but ideas can and do. So I'm happy with my progress on this.

So with all that said and done, it leads me to one question: What on earth have I been doing with all my time???

The days seem to blur into weeks, school holidays come and go and bang, another year's calendar goes in the recycling.

So my catchphrase for 2014 is "more discipline". At the end of the day, this is a business and provided the work is coming in, I shan't get too het up on the fact that I've not written too many travel articles or had a magazine cover or two, but if I don't push myself as an artist, the business will stagnate and suffer, I will end up in a funk and we'll be in a whole world of pain. It's all to easy to get distracted by the new, the different and the shiny but concerted effort and application wins hands down every time.

So what are your goals and targets for the year ahead? Please feel free to share in the comments below.

What are your goals for 2014?