These are my New Year’s photography resolutions to make 2025 the best photo year yet

A new year, a new you! Or that’s how all the post festive season advertisements seem to be spinning it at any rate. Will January 2025 be dry? Will it be vegan? Nope and nope (for me, at least)! I tend not to make any New Year’s Resolutions because it just sets me up for failure.

However, this year, I’m doing something a little different and am setting myself some photography resolutions instead for 2025. My aim is to inject some excitement into both my work and life (you’d be surprised how much being a photographer and writer isn’t as glamorous as Hollywood would have us believe!), and maybe you’ll get some ideas and inspiration, too! So, without further ado, here are my top photography resolutions for 2025!

Plan and actually do a personal project

I’m an ideas person (just ask our Chief Editor!). I have no problem coming up with several hair-brained ideas, one or two of them are sometimes even practical! Where I fall down, however, is in the doing and completing of these ideas. I’m a master of side quests and procrastination.

Ideas are worth very little if you can’t follow through and execute them. So in 2025, I will zero in on one or two of these ideas and properly plan a creative personal project from them. There’s no big hurry, but I will set myself a deadline to make sure that I actually finish something. I don’t yet know what form this will take, whether it will be a stills project, a video project or a mix. It could be documentary journalistic, or…not – watch this space! One thing I know for sure is that a personal project will push you to new levels and help create a much more interesting body of work faster than you can imagine.

Explore film and try out all my vintage cameras

I have several (OK, around 7 to 10) vintage cameras in my closet, some of which must work still. Some still have a half-used roll of film inside them. One was my grandmother’s Kodak pocket camera which she used sparingly, ekeing out the roll of 12 photos to last the entire summer. I grew up in the film era; however, I didn’t fully get into photography until the early 2000s when things started to switch to digital.

Today’s cameras are spectacular, and I’m extremely happy with my Canon EOS R6II, however, I can’t help feeling that cameras today are getting a little bit too clever and taking away some of the unpredictability from photography. It will be fun to learn some darkroom techniques and explore some of those imperfections that set film photography apart from digital.

Print some cyanotypes

I’ve had a couple of cyanotype kits festering away in the back of my cupboard for a while now. Maybe 2025 is the ideal time to dust them off and make some art using just sunshine and a couple of chemicals! What could possibly go wrong?

Seriously though, cyanoptype printing is an interesting early photographic technique which takes a bit of experimentation to achieve good results. It will be fun to explore it.

Learn a new shooting technique

2024 wasn’t a great year in terms of pushing myself photography-wise. The previous year I invested a lot of time and energy learning how to shoot VR 180 video. It was a steep learning curve but also a lot of fun. The year before that, I went through a phase of learning to shoot the night sky. This past year I wasn’t feeling much like learning yet another complicated thing, and instead rested on my laurels a little too much.

Looking back on 2024, I’m not exactly sure where the time went. Sure, I did a few cool things, but nothing spectacular or groundbreaking. This year, I’d like to challenge myself again. I am already learning how to plan a shoot of the full moon this month using PhotoPills, and I will see how that goes. Sure, it’s not that complicated or exciting, and it’s been done before, but it’s new for me, and that’s what counts.

Learn a new editing technique

Similarly, we can also expand our skillset in the post-production zone as well. This year I’d like to really get to grips with colour grading in Davinci Resolve. It’s something I’ve avoided learning properly for too long now. Sure, I know enough to get by, but now I’d like to understand how it works in depth.

Similarly, with the price increase of Adobe’s photography plan coming into effect, perhaps we’d all do ourselves a favour by learning to use a different editing software than Lightroom and Photoshop. Affinity Photo and Capture One both offer non-subscription options. While I’m admittedly reluctant to have to learn a new one, it will be beneficial to have the option of an alternative to Adobe’s software.

Have more ‘mini adventures’

My highlight of 2024 was a week’s photography trip to Iceland. I’d been saving for it for a year, and it was something I’d looked forward to for months. I’m happy to say that it was every bit as excellent as I’d anticipated, and despite losing my camera, I have no regrets.

I’m already planning a big adventure for summer 2025, however, I don’t want to only have one trip to look forward to like I did in 2024. I am restricted somewhat by budget and time, so I’m pushing myself to create space for a weekly ‘mini adventure’ rather than something far away and expensive.

These small adventures could be as simple as exploring a new neighbourhood, taking a train somewhere, doing a day hike, or even just working from a new place rather than always working from home. The key is to break up routine, experience new places, and take my camera along. Maybe I’ll even combine this with the moon photography or shooting film!

If I end up doing even half of these things, one thing is certain: 2025 will be a fun year for photography, and I may even take some great photos and grow as a photographer in the process!

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