While 2024 was a busy photography year, it was also a major year for personal milestones. Specifically, I turned 40. Hitting middle age has more to do with photography than you might expect. At the very least, it made me think about photography in ways I haven't done in quite some time.

The first one is shifting goals. While I am a little wary about what the next few years will bring as far as cultural messages sent out to men, I do still want to make the shift to men's portraiture. This is not an easy task, but I have spent time learning new skills and getting practice in portraiture. I actually first dipped my toes in this sphere in 2023, and I did quite a bit more work in 2024. While I still haven't sorted the photos I've taken, I at least have taken some pictures. That's a pretty crucial first step! The work I've managed to achieve on this front shows something strange. In most of my photography work, I use natural light to pretty good effect. Ironically, this is proving to be a hurdle in portraiture. When I've been indoors or using more artificial light, I'm liking my portrait work better. Clearly I wasn't expecting this, and I think I'll need some time to figure out why this is happening.

On a related note, I've found that people seem to be responding to my darker photos more positively. My day job recently set up a virtual photography network, and I've made some posts there. For whatever reason, I've been posting a lot of photos that showcase very vivid colors along with a lot of silhouetting or underexposure of other parts of the frame. The extremities are strangely what I've felt most confident sharing. When I shared something with a bit less contrast, the reception wasn't quite as good. This mirrors results I've seen when I've entered NatCam's contests. This doesn't exactly bode well for my portraiture goals, as such extremity work doesn't have that much skill or aesthetic transfer to portraits. Something tells me that my style is naturally going this way even though I don't exactly want it to do that. I'm not quite sure how to handle this one.

And then there's the physical aspect of photography. Years ago (in a now effectively defunct blog), I talked about how much physical work photographers do and how this aspect is often underappreciated. Well, middle age came along to remind me that photography is not always a picnic. During the summer I experienced some periodic elbow soreness. In August, I decided to attend two photography workshops  in a 24 hour period (one on a Friday night, the other the next afternoon). My elbow was very unhappy that I did this. I ended up getting diagnosed with tennis elbow, and my physical therapist remarked that this can happen to photographers. Oh goody. I've been battling tennis elbow since, with some weeks being better than other. Photography-heavy trips like the one I took to Montreal in September don't really help much.

Truth be told, thanks in part to doing a lot of photography work since my birthday, 40 has gone by really fast. I am stunned by how quickly 41 is approaching. This upcoming year will likely be a bit slower on the photography front. I have a schedule for all my sorting, and I plan to upload more selections to the site soon. Given all the photos I took last year, I really need to go through them and make heads or tails of what's actually worth sharing. That's not to say that there won't be new photos in the works. I'll still be taking new shots. The plan is to take a little time away from that to do other kinds of photography-related work that needs to be done. Hopefully that will include getting this here iste in better shape! We shall see.