This won’t be a huge year-in-review thing. For one thing, I’m late. We’re already 5 days into 2012, and I’m excited to focus on the future. Still, 2011 was a pivotal year for me and my photography business. Maybe pivotal is the wrong word: It was the first full year of my photography business. I’d been working photo gigs here and there for years, but my daily life was dominated by a full-time desk job. After much deliberation (and subtle exhortations from my wife to “quit [my] fucking job!”), I did just that in November 2010. Everyone does this kind of transition their own way. Mine was to dive in. I don’t think it would have happened any other way. All of a sudden, I was doing what I love, full-time. Or, trying to. Now a year’s gone by. So:
WHAT HAPPENED IN 2011?
Tough Mudder
After shooting my first event for Tough Mudder in November 2010, I was hired by them again to shoot Tough Mudder Pennsylvania in April 2011. A great relationship was formed and, all-told, I ended up photographing 10 Tough Mudder events all over the country in 2011, culminating with the 24-hour-long World’s Toughest Mudder competition in late December.
New York Bike Portraits
I continued my #BikeNYC portrait series/blog, and a wonderful thing happened: what began purely as a personal project started to open doors to real work, new clients and assignments. The focus of my bike portraits began to shift from people who found me on Twitter or through my blog to everyday New Yorkers on bikes who I approached on the street. I realized that in sharing these people’s images and stories, my bike photos can play their own small part in advocating for safer city streets. My bike portraits/profiles turned into a regular feature on Streetsblog called Why I Ride. I also collaborated with the New York City Department of Transportation on a multimedia project that you will hear more about in 2012. This past year has been huge for cycling in New York, and I’ve fortunate to work with organizations at the forefront of all the progress being made, including Streetsblog, Transportation Alternatives, the New York City DOT, Bike New York, Bicycle Habitat, and others.
Flickr Blog
In July, my #BikeNYC portraits were featured on Flickrblog. That day my Flickr photostream had almost 100,000 views (I’d been averaging a couple hundred per day prior to this). It was nice to get all the traffic, but mostly it was just a real honor: I’ve been a Flickr member since 2005, and the Flickr community has been a huge influence in my growth as a photographer.
Published Work
In 2011, both my Tough Mudder photos and my bike work were featured in several magazines, including Momentum, San Francisco Magazine, Seattle Magazine, and Outside.
What’s coming up in 2012:
More Tough Mudders – If you like seeing badass photos of muddy people overcoming nutty obstacles, you’re in luck: I’m slated to shoot lots more Tough Mudders in 2012.
More bike advocacy: My Streetsblog feature dropped off a bit toward the end of the year. I plan to revive it and continue doing my thing in what will be a huge year for biking in New York (BIKE SHARE!)
Something else #BikeNYC related: Stay tuned
More personal work: As the assignments picked up, the personal work started to drop off. This isn’t good. Personal work is what fuels creativity, keeping us hungry and always reaching for the next thing. I want/need to shoot more photos just for me. Having a brand-new, compact camera (Fuji X100) always at my side will help things.
Exciting new January assignment: To be revealed in a couple of days.
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Thank you for reading. Looking forward to an interesting 2012.
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