New Year Resolutions by The Blonde

As TJ says, we were both a bit hesitant about choosing “New Years Resolution” as an assignment topic. Like most people we had had more years than we could remember making resolutions and then “failing” by the end of January, and had both this year decided not to set any. I had bizarrely set myself some goals in November “24 in 12” Less resolutions and more things I wanted to remind myself I wanted to do. And so in terms of a “proper” resolution, I really just wanted to concentrate on one simple concept or state of mind that I could carry with me all year. And for me it was to just try to live in the moment more, to enjoy life’s good and wonderful moments, and the harder ones? Well just to accept them, to try always to see the positive in the learning available in the hard times, and carry that with me, while letting go of the negative. Also in the same vein, to grab every opportunity for adventure, for positive experiences, moments, connections. To look after myself and always seek balance, keep in the positive in mind, body and spirit, and realise sometimes I need a run, sometimes I need quiet, learn to pace myself, rather than burn myself out.

So kind of hard concepts to represent photographically! I saw plenty of shots of people jumping which I loved, but I WOEFULLY failed to produce anything attractive looking and after falling on my ass a few times decided to try to find a log to climb up on and balance on, thus demonstrating both adventure and being in the moment (without falling off!) and then balance. But it proved hard to “manufacture” the emotions on a log where I didn’t really feel like I would fall off and using a tripod and running back and forth. So in the end I choose a precarious set of logs where I really DID think I could fall off any moment, and got my boyfriend to shoot me, which produced the real emotions of excitement, achievement and a little bit of fear that I wanted in being “in the moment” Technically hard because it was low light and I had to set a high shutter speed to stop wobbles and so that required a higher ISO so there is some “noise”. Post production, just a little warm up on the colour front and a contrast tweak, as the winter light was so flat and grey. Some other poses in the filmstrip below worked well, but weren't as natural in terms of my expression.

I’m pleased with the final shot, it’s very “me” and looking at the emotion on my face, it does capture what I wanted to portray, and if I spend most of 2012 feeling like that, then that’s a successful year for me, lets wait and see!