100,000 Photos in one year

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

Confucius

So, how do I start this blog? I suppose an introduction is better than nothing. Hi, I am Neil may, also known as Kicks and this is my challenge blog. I have had an ambition to become a professional photographer for a number of years now and I have spent an eyewatering amount of money on equipment in the pursuit of that goal. The problem is, while I am quite well versed in the Jargon of photography, can compose a decent enough photo and maybe even could convince the layman that I am a pro, Im not very good.

Now many would argue that this is just a form of imposter syndrome and that I must clearly be a great photographer after the many thousands spent, the thousands of photos and the multitude of events I have attended. I respect that view, but I honestly feel that compared to how good I potentially could be, compared to where I am, is a massive gulf.

Rather than sink into a self defeated funk about it, I have decided this is the year where I start to bridge that gap between latent potential and actual ability. So I began to think about ways to increase my competence as a photographer and also to document my journey so others could share it (and hopefully keep me company). I decided that I am probably 100,000 shots away from becoming a competent professional photographer and about 250,000 shots from becoming a great one.

So this challenge and blog was born. It is a way to state publicly that I, Neil May will take 100,000 deliberate shots in the year of 2020. By shots I mean individual independent photos, so burst shots of the same subject matter do not count, unless there is a significant change of angle, perspective or light. I will be using any one of 5 cameras I currently own, but mobile phone pictures do not count. Each photo has to be composed and shot by me and I have to record my settings and thought process for every photo I publish online both here and on my instagram account. I will post high resolution versions of my photos on 500px and flickr, although at this stage I will be limited to what I can publish via the free tiers.

The cameras I will be mostly using for this challenge are my Nikon trio :- D850, Z6 & Z50. I will also occasionally shoot on my Fuji XT3 and very rarely my Panasonic GH5. I might even pop out my girlfriends Sonys a6300 just to mix it up a bit. I full expect to break at least one shutter this year, but thats ok, its part of the process.

I will be shooting in Jpeg for the most part, both for ease of transfer and also because the idea is to get my exposure right in camera, but if it is mission critical work, such as a paid job, I will shoot in Raw+Jpeg.

I will be working as many photo assignments as I can find on the internet and trying to shoot something new everyday, or at the very least something in a different way everyday. At the moment, my time is limited because I have to fit this around full-time work, exercise and learning commitments (I’m also learning programming this year) so my subject matter might be samey at times. I apologise if my photos sometimes seem repetitive but my logic is this :- If I can make the mundane look interesting, when I get to shoot the interesting, i will be able to make it that bit better. I live in Birmingham, UK so the majority of my work will be shot in and around the city.

So this is my first blog post and my manifesto, so to speak. I have started this blog on wordpress, but the idea is to in the next few weeks migrate it to its own hosted website. We will see how this all plays out. Thank you anyone who follows me on this journey, its going to be fun.