cat-right

New Years Resolutions For Photo Editors

New Years often mean New Years Resolutions for a lot of us. Everyone wants to be in better shape, save more money, or quit a bad habit. iPiccy fully encourages all of those things, but we also want to drop in a few for photo editors, and photographers!

So instead of saying just saying “be a better photo editor” or “take better photographs”, why not set some creative and interesting goals for yourself?

Find Photographers/Editors To Look Up To

By this I mean, just search around on the internet, libraries, or galleries and find some work that really stirs up some feelings inside you. Whether they make you stare in awe, re-evaluate your life, or just make you want to share it with others, it just has to bring emotion out of you. Research these works. Try and understand how they put together these photos. What made it resonate with you so much? Was it the composition, the lighting, the grand edits, the minor edits, or maybe you thought it was unedited? There is so much work that goes into each and every photo, and each and every edit, and if you begin to break those down, you become more knowledgeable of your craft.

Supes

Trevor DeSaussure’s “Supes”

"VonWong's Underwater Fisherman in collaboration with Ballentines"

“VonWong’s Underwater Fisherman in collaboration with Ballentines”

Try A Different Style

sunset-169925_1280the-little-girl-277697_1280

If you only ever do minor color correction edits, maybe you should try doing a more fantastical and adventurous photo manipulation. If you’re strictly a nature photographer, try doing some portraits of people. You will more than likely appreciate the work that goes into those different styles, as well as learn techniques that you can adapt and adjust for your own needs.

Set A Numbers Goal

agenda-1928419_1280

Whether it’s one photo a week to edit/take, or one photo a month to edit/take. Give yourself a number for the year to work toward. It’s important to feel your progress as you move along your journey to become a better, more well-rounded, and experienced photo editor. Having a number you’re working toward will let you see your progress as you move along. Being able to look back at old work and compare will show how far you’ve come. This is important, as it may be that you get a bit discouraged or feel a bit too busy sometimes, you’ll be able to look back at work you’ve done and compare your works.

Share Your Work

This one is flexible. If you really want to only edit photos for your own purposes and private use, that’s up to you. However, sharing your work with iPiccy and others in general can get interesting discussions going. It’ll create conversations about what you could do differently. Sure, some people may be rude. However, there will be plenty of good people who will give fair and helpful critiques. This will help you grow and change as a photo editor as it will give you different ideas, and you’ll also find out what you prioritize because there are things you simply won’t care to change.

Interested in writing a guest spot for iPiccy you can check out this guide? Interested in submitting some work? Contact us on any of our social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest).   Include a link to your work and a short blurb about yourself.