Everyone in the industry states, you have to do personal projects to advance your career. I happen to work full time, forty hours plus per week, fifty-two weeks out of the year, in a career that requires me to produce. Yes, I’m a professional photographer for the Federal Government, and I work hard at my job. Sometimes, it’s in video, graphic design, and even in photography. One day, I can do a portrait, another document a site with spherical images, another with just still images. My career is active, but my life feels empty if I’m not doing my own photography/artistic projects. For a long time, I thought I wasn’t doing projects, but looking back, I realized I was doing projects.

This year, I’m thinking about landscape photography and a video project that will take three days of filming, and I don’t know how long to edit the footage. The landscape will be around my state of Virginia, not sure yet of the subject matter. Something to get me out of the area with my dog Duke. Just to get away during the weekend.

The video project is coming up soon, I have the equipment and I’m practicing with the new gadgets. The subject is the upcoming Persian Spring Festive in Northern Virginia. My friends company puts in on each year. In the past, I produced a book of still images that they could use to show future clients, but now I’m moving into video. This will give them some marketing media and also show off my skills in video and editing. This is important, for when I make the transition to retirement photography, with the start of my own business.