What is your Goal as a Photographer?

usayit · Feb 11, 2007

Simply put... It is part of me... it balances me... it slows me down to experience life....

Every picture on my wall reminds me of that fact.

Chickenhawk · Feb 11, 2007

My goal is simply to continue to enjoy my hobby

jemmy · Feb 11, 2007

My goals are...

#1... to begin building my studio in June this year and hopefully have it up and running by January 2008.

#2... for my name to one day become 'known' in the local world of portrait and wedding photography. (massive goal, but one which i am going to strive to acheive!)

#3... to continue to be inspired and to continue to learn through books, this forum and my favourite photographers.

#4... to never lose the overwhelming passion i have for photographing people.

I will stop at 4 but could easily go on... I LOVE portrait/wedding photography!!! Great thread.

mortallis288 · Feb 11, 2007

mine are
1. Get better at portaits
2. work on some sports photography
3. get a job at a newspaper or mabye the college paper next year
4. have fun

neea · Feb 14, 2007

I totally agree with what dlsr_noob said about beauty.

*Right now my current goal is to start taking again (i hate these extra long ruts. and winter. but I blame winter for these ruts).
*Learn lots from books, the internet, and everyone here.
*To have a small basement studio to do portraits. I really like what gabelimom said about maternity photography as I want this to be one of my main subjects.
*To be known locally... I know this is easy to achieve and could start as early as this spring but I'd prefer to have better equipment
*Have my own darkroom!!! This is a big one. And again something I could do shortly as I've been offered a ton of equipment for free.

Claff · Feb 15, 2007

In roughly this order

I want to have fun
I want to create memories of where I've been and what I've done
I want people to stroke my ego and say "man you take good pics"

Two out of three ain't bad

Cuervo79 · Feb 15, 2007

1# make enough money out of it
2# shoot only fashion or glamour sessions
3# be able to have my photos on the cover of a fashion mag
4# be able to have a cover on national Geographic

a even if they are long term goals those are the ones I long for

Stevedevil · Feb 15, 2007

To Build up Knowledge in such an amazing hobby, and to still love every second of taking, Photoshop'ing, printing and sharing photos, Im still at the beginning, but its a great road of life!!

Innocence · Feb 15, 2007

1/ have fun.
2/ have a place to channel my income haha =P

(Ghastly) Krueger · Feb 15, 2007

I've always directed my attntion to exact sciences. Math, chem, thermodynamics in school. IT analysis at work.

I feel the need for some artistic expression to balance... or complement that. Right now it's photography.

So it may sound corny, but in that regard, photography makes me a more complete person.

Also like Claff, I like when someone says "you are a good photographer" of "you should take the pic, you are the good one". I guess my ego also needs that.

One time I was taking pics on a mountain bike race. I was trying some techniques and also some friends were running.

After the race some guy approached me and said "Hey, do you have any good pic of me? I'd like to buy them"
I found a couple and gave them to him for free.
Maybe some day if in dire need I could get some extra income from it.. a very small one.
I guess it's true that in the land of the blind, the one with one eye is king.
U guess

Hertz van Rental · Feb 18, 2007

The idea of a 'goal' is of having a target at which to aim. Whilst I would not argue against anyone having a direction to start out in, I do have problems with a view of life or a creative endeavour where you have already decided where you are going to be at the end before you even begin. And this is what you get when you start setting yourself 'goals'!
One may have a goal when building a flat-pack bookshelf from IKEA - you want it to be a bookshelf and not a rabbit hutch - but there may well come a time when the bookshelf is no longer needed and you cannibalise it to make a rabbit hutch for your children's pet.
That was not the original 'goal' but real life never runs according to plan.
And what if you achieve a 'goal' you have set yourself. Do you just tick the box on the list of things to do before you die and move on to the next 'goal'?
I think the question should be more along the lines of 'what would you like to achieve with photography?' or 'what would you like to get out of your photography?'.
At least, those are the questions that people in this thread seem to be answering. Perhaps it is because they realise that 'goals' can only ever be short term things subject to modification. And Photography (and life) is much bigger than that.

Photography is an end in itself. It is a journey of self-exploration; of how we react to the world.
When we can have so much fun traveling, does it matter if we sometimes lose the compass or if we never arrive at a destination?

NYBrit · Feb 18, 2007

Right now, my goal is to get back the passion for photography I used to have. I used to be always taking photographs and used to do studio shoots and portraits. I've even done a few weddings. Now people subjects are harder to find and I'm not sure what direction I am going to go in. I live in New York City so you'd think I would have plenty to photograph. I also came here from England 2 years ago and so am living in a new country and again you'd think I'd have plenty of inspiration all around me living in a different culture. Maybe this site can help me recapture the fire I used to have. After that then I'll look at what my next goals will be.

Icon72 · Feb 18, 2007

My goals would be to keep learning as much as possible and continue to improve. Anyone can take a snap shot but not everyone can take a nice photograph.

I, for one, would like to turn my photography into a money making venture one day. I have no pie in the sky dreams about it. I realize what it takes to get there realistically.

I guess another continuous goal is to make people see things differently than they normally would whenever possible.

Chicagophotoshop · Feb 18, 2007

Hertz van Rental said:
The idea of a 'goal' is of having a target at which to aim. Whilst I would not argue against anyone having a direction to start out in, I do have problems with a view of life or a creative endeavour where you have already decided where you are going to be at the end before you even begin. And this is what you get when you start setting yourself 'goals'!
One may have a goal when building a flat-pack bookshelf from IKEA - you want it to be a bookshelf and not a rabbit hutch - but there may well come a time when the bookshelf is no longer needed and you cannibalise it to make a rabbit hutch for your children's pet.
That was not the original 'goal' but real life never runs according to plan.
And what if you achieve a 'goal' you have set yourself. Do you just tick the box on the list of things to do before you die and move on to the next 'goal'?
I think the question should be more along the lines of 'what would you like to achieve with photography?' or 'what would you like to get out of your photography?'.
At least, those are the questions that people in this thread seem to be answering. Perhaps it is because they realise that 'goals' can only ever be short term things subject to modification. And Photography (and life) is much bigger than that.

Photography is an end in itself. It is a journey of self-exploration; of how we react to the world.
When we can have so much fun traveling, does it matter if we sometimes lose the compass or if we never arrive at a destination?