First blog post in a while, let's see if I can even remember how to string a sentence together. So it's December 27th 2024 closing in quickly on 2025, that's what this blog post is all about.
2024 has afforded me a lot of time to think and evaluate both myself and my life and I think have figured a few things out and hopefully that's going to help me moving into the new year. in this post, the first of many I hope, I wanted to outline what I hope to do in 2025 firstly to improve myself as a person, father and husband, but also improve myself as a photographer. So let me list down the ideas I have.
1. Get fit and healthy again.
The single biggest thing I have learnt about myself in 2024 is how much my health and fitness affects me as a person. For many reasons I have allowed my health and fitness to get the worst point ever and I feel terrible for it. Mental clarity is very bad, confidence in myself is really bad, feel tired way too often and the worst part is I feel I don't have enough energy for my daughter. Im blessed to have a super active child and I want to be able to keep up with her for years to come. So that is the first thing I want to do in 2025 to improve all areas of my life.
2. Spend way less time on Social Media.
There's no denying how powerful social media is, both for good and bad. What I have learnt the past year is that the less time I spend scrolling social media the better my mood is. This improvement is amplified the more time away I spend. An example from the past year was the few months I took a step away from creating completely. I really missed the creativity in my life however I felt amazing from the lack of time I spent on social media. Then as I started to take pictures again, my time on social media went up and my mood and focus and satisfaction in everything reduces.
This is not a fix for everyone, but I need to really get off social media as much as possible. I think posting images is fine, but the doom scrolling is not good for my mental health so, I will try to spend an hour or so scheduling a weeks worth of posts on IG then try my best to keep of the apps other than to reply or communicate with Brands or friends.
3. Focus on my photography style.
I still don't think I have quite figured out my photography style yet. I'm very happy with this website and all of the images on here as well as the edits on the images. I feel black and white is definitely a great way for me to showcase my photography. I would love to really hone in on either street photography or street portraits in 2025. These areas of photography are massively motivating for me and my aim is to improve in both of these areas. I do love landscape photography but my life here in Bangkok doesn't really afford me much opportunity to much landscape work. That is something I will try on our long holiday back to the UK next year.
4. Make some solid photography work whilst back in England on holiday.
We are planning a long trip home in 2025 so I would love to capitalize on that and build two projects at least in the time we are there. Sometimes I feel I get a little complacent with how amazing Bangkok is and my photography starts to follow trends that are a little too easy. Being back in the UK will really test my ability to adapt and create solid bodies of work that is totally different to what I want to make in Thailand.
5. Bring my two projects to an end.
I am currently working on and shooting toward two projects. Finishing them both in 2025 would be amazing. The idea of seeing these bodies of work in a mini zine or book is so exciting to me so I definitely want to push towards getting that done. Both of the projects have evolved slightly during the time I have been shooting for them so I guess they will evolve further but that is exciting in itself.
So I think that brings this post to an end. If I can accomplish all the things mentioned here I think I'll be onto a winner of a year. Ultimately the most exciting thing for 2025 is spending more time with my wife and daughter, but I hope that a renewed fitness journey and focus on photography will really help 2025 be one of the best years of my life.
Thank you for reading this and check back regularly for posts showing the images I capture on each trip out of the house with my camera.
Thanks again,
Arran.
