Happy New Year! I have shared an annual review on this blog for the last 5 years (since the inception of this blog back in 2016. I’m not about to break that tradition! The purpose of these blog posts for me to reflect on my photography and aspects of my life related to photography, and also to discuss what I’m looking forward to in 2022. If anything the last 2 years has taught us is that things don’t always go according to plan and adapting to changes life throws at your is more important than executing the perfect plan.
If you’re interested, my previous year in reviews can be found here:
The photos scattered throughout this post is actually a throwback from the Brookfield Winter Lights event back in July 2021. They are not my “best work of 2021” but more it was an opportunity for my to share a series of photos that I took and quite liked in 2021.
Reflection
Like many around the world, 2021 didn’t quite go back to normality as we had optimistically hoped at the end of 2020. As I’m based in Perth, Western Australia, I count myself as one of the lucky ones who for the most part did live a relatively normal life with the occasional lock down when COVID cases cropped up.
Before I sat down to think about and write my review of 2021, I had a look at my 2020 annual review. In a short sentence, my travel, photography and blogging plans that I had made for 2021 took a backseat.
2021 was a massive year for me on a personal level, and it’s also the main reason for the radio silence on this blog and photography taking a back seat. We spent a chunk of our time in 2021 wedding planning, getting married (after postponing the wedding) and buying our very own place. In amongst that all, working in the health sector meant my work wasn’t slowing down. That meant very little downtime to pursue photography and other hobbies.
The on-and-off border closures throughout 2021 meant interstate travel within Australia was equally challenging. We somehow managed to make it to Melbourne and back to Perth back in May 2021. This was between a Perth lockdown before our trip and a Melbourne lockdown after returned to Perth! It was great to meet some family and friends in Victoria for our engagement party celebration as well as take a few days out in Daylesford for some much needed R&R. I still have yet to look through and edit my 1k plus photos I took on our 10 day trip to Melbourne.
With little travel in our 2021 calendar and no photography meet ups, I didn’t spend much time at all taking photos for my own enjoyment. While I didn’t actively pursue my photography side hustle and finding more clients, I did do a few client shoots through janicekho.com which were really fun and helped build my experience and confidence further as a photographer.
From a Travellinglens.co blogging perspective, 2021 is the year with the fewest blog posts. A grand total of 10 posts. Surprisingly, despite a significantly lower number of blog posts compared to previous years. my visitor and blog views didn’t fall proportionally. This is by and large due to the amazing photography community that I’m part of that has supported my writings and photography. That’s something I’m so grateful for.
I’m also grateful for the opportunity of doing a number of photography collaborations – Reviewing and using the Fujifilm Instax SQ1 and printing my first two wall arts with PrestoPhoto. There were also a couple of other photography product I’ve been using and was planning to review in 2021, but alas, time and energy got away from me. However I’m hopeful for them to back on the cards in 2022.
A stretch goal I had for 2021 was to learn videography (since I got a new camera at the end of 2020 – the highly capable Fujifilm X-T4), but again videography is a whole new skill set and learning curve that I just didn’t have much time for.
Looking to 2022 and beyond
While I’m hopeful that 2022 will bring us a bit closer to normality, I think there will be plenty of challenges ahead of us all. With Western Australia’s intention to open up to the rest of the country in early 2022, it’s difficult to say what will happen exactly.
We’re hopeful to be able to travel to Melbourne and Sydney to visit some friends and family. And even better if we can travel overseas to visit our extended family given that many were not able to attend our wedding. If travelling is on the cards for 2022, then naturally more photography will follow.
I’m also planning to get back into writing on this blog in 2022, with a goal of publishing 30 blog posts. It will no doubt be a stretch goal for me, but am I’m exciting to get back into. I’m also really keen to get back into some photo editing, which I’m sure will bring me plenty of inspiration for blogging. I have an unhealthy backlog of ~15k photos to review, cull and edit! As I did very little photography and travel in 2021 my backlog didn’t grow significantly in 2021.
Videography is back on the list in 2022 as a stretch goal, but we’ll see what happens.
To be able to achieve some of these goals I need to continue to work on creating boundaries and better habits and routines in my work and personal life. This will hopefully free up some time, energy and attention for me to pursue writing and photography.
Conclusion
If you have read this far, thank you! I’m excited to see how 2022 turns out, I have no doubt there will be challenges ahead, but I’m sure there will be lots to be grateful for and a lot of positive that will come out of 2022 as well. I’m looking forward to sharing more stories and photo series on my blog, and connecting with the photography community. It means a lot to me that you have supported and taken the time out of your busy day to check out my writings and images. I hope you’ve had a great start to the new year and wishing you a safe and well 2022.
I’m keen to hear what you have planned for 2022 in the comments below! Thanks for stopping by today and happy shooting.
Leave a Reply