Being the new year and reading lots of new year resolutions I thought I’d state my top ten goals for 2010.  Is ’2010′ pronounced ‘Twenty Ten’ or ‘Two Thousand Ten’?  How did I do at my 2009 goals?

2009 – I only had 4 goals written on my whiteboard

1. Have 400 images in my iStock portfolio.  Failed terribly at this goal.  I started out with 100 images and currently I’m at 151.  What happened?  Lack of time.  Working a full time IT job and trying to create a photography career with only 10-15 hours a week something had to give.  Stock photography really forces me to become a better photographer as getting images accepted at iStock is no easy task.
2. Complete my 2 year art degree program.  This I completed!  It actually took my 4 years to complete but I now have some formal training in art.  Yeah me! (as my daughter would say)
3. Earn enough money to pay for my photography gear.  Well, didn’t get this accomplished either.  Doesn’t help that I switched platforms from Canon to Nikon either.  I will say that I did make enough to pay for my car payments so all the hard work is starting to pay off finally.
4. Update website to get rid of my Adobe Flash based site.  Completed.  I originally had a Adobe Flash based website that was all pretty and such but the more reading I did on the subject the less I liked the idea.  For starters, my website couldn’t be viewed on an iPhone.  Also the old site was a bit restricted in what I could present.  In the end, I switched back to my WordPress engine as my website presence.  The new site is viewable on an iPhone and it easier to update.

2010

1. Grow my photography business revenue by five times.
2. Create a formal business plan to outline my transition to a full-time portrait and event photographer.
3. Create a new logo and branding/marketing campaign.
4. Shoot a couple weddings and determine if this is something I want to add to the business.
5. Grow my iStock portfolio to 250 images.
6. Start exercising again.
7. Find some formal studio space that I can cheaply rent so I’m not using my living room.
8. Participate more in my chamber of commerce leads groups to develop stronger business relationships.
9. Blog more often and with deeper content.
10. Spend more quality time with my kids and wife.

The list could go on and on with things like learn Photoshop better, experiment with different strobe techniques, etc, etc.  But I think this is the top 10 goals for the year.