Strange title? Let me explain

At the start of 2020 I made a resolution that this year my photography would focus on capturing everyday place in a way that has not been seen before, including places that I have never been before and places I did have enough time to do justice to the shoot. That included taking a weekend trip to the Mohawk Valley of NY to photograph fall foliage, a week trip to NYC to capture the foliage there, and some of the other state park in New York, beside Letchworth. TO say this was one resolution I did not keep is an understatement!

This late summer and early fall, I was able to get to Allegany State park in southern NY for the first time. The colors were near peak, but it still was a different place and I was able to get a great shot of the Kelly Wooden Bridge and the typical winding road shot.  I also spent time at Sodus Point and Chimney Bluff NY to capture both sunrises and sunsets, though they were not very different than what you find on the web. Reluctantly I went to Letchworth for a couple of sunrises. Again colors were near peak, but I did find a new spot that I had not photographed before so that was good. However as the season progressed and the colors reach peak, every photographer that I followed on social media, had the same shots of Letchworth, from the same freaking spots, and to be honest there was very little originality in 99.9% of them.  No imagination,No story to be told,  just typical shots of High Falls, Inspiration Point and Archer point. Between seeing what other have done, the fact that I was to be in NYC for my birthday fall shoot and bad weather, I gave up on anymore fall foliage shots.

Since I started with my Photography, it was a way to separate from my full time job.  I would always say that a bad weekend at a craft show was better than a good day at work. It was to be the fun thing I did when I retired, a way to make some extra money, but not meant to be another full time job. I like to visit place for other reason than just to get more pictures to sell, but to explore and this year there seemed to be a lot of pressure to go out and shoot. There is enough crap to deal with this year, so I stopped taking pictures this fall.

In every hobby there comes a time where you need to take a break, and the fall of 2020 is mine. Since the beginning of the fall I have been working on getting my Pet Portrait business started again, learning how to sell on Etsy and improve my presence on Social Media. I have always want to do some stop action photos, and I plan on doing some that over the next few month. In fact I plan on documenting my progress on this blog. After the first of the year I will start my yearly process of reviewing all my show photos, removing those that have had no sales, or I have better shots, add new photo, and prepare for the possibility of having a full show season.

So come fall of  2021 I will pull myself up by my bootstrap, hope I can travel more than 3 hours from Rochester and get back into landscapes and cityscapes photography.  However for now I will sit on the sidelines and let the other shoot the same old stuff.