Favourite Photos of 2009

I can't believe that 2009 is almost over already, it's the end of the decade, how can that be?! The 2000s still seem kind of new and exciting to me, not done and gone already...this is the first decade of my adult life and the first time that I can clearly remember what happened every year within it (I was only 7 in 1990, so it's kind of fuzzy...) Anyway, it's crazy, and it got be thinking that I should really start getting my "best of 09" posts ready, so here's the first, my favourite photos (shot by me) of 2009.

This year has been kind of strange for me photography-wise, since the first half of the year (until the end of June) was mostly similar to 2008 as far as inspiration/motivation/quantity of photos taken went, but the 2nd half got completely turned around from a little thing called "getting pregnant", lol. Starting in June/July my desire to take photos completely vanished from the face of the planet (along with my motivation to do anything else), and it's been really hard to get it back since. My energy levels are back up now so for the last 6 weeks or so I've been thinking about my photography more and more and wanting to get back into it, but before then I was lucky to pick up my camera at all. Getting that spark and fire back is going to be the biggest step I think, but I feel like I'm ready again to get to that place.

Above is a mosaic of all of my Fav photos from 2009 (sorry some are so small, it was the only way I could get them all in one post! They can all be found in my Flickr though, I'll be making a "Favs of 09" set.) As always, lots of self-portraits, photos of Heather (before she left) and Dan, Shimi and the dogs, Italy and home, and something new to 09, the Belly shots :) Looking back through my folders, there were some pretty good shots in there (in my opinion anyway), which showed me that I did grow a little bit in my photography skills from last year (getting a new lens certainly helped), but I still have a loooooong way to go before getting to where I want to be, and I want 2010 to be the year that I continue moving forward. I'm hoping (perhaps foolishly) that I'll have more time to concentrate on it since I'll be home on Mat Leave, plus we'll be in Sussex (country!) and I'll have a perfect little model to practise on, but we'll see. It's going to be a major goal of mine for the new decade (Goals post coming later).

Now, just dreaming here, but I'd also like to upgrade my camera next year. If I want to attempt to shoot some semi-kinda-real shoots with people (or just build my portfolio for that matter), I can't walk in there with my Rebel XT, it just can't do what I want it to do. I have my 50mm f/1.4 lens which I love, but I need a new body, so I've been looking into the next step up, which for me (and my price range), would be one of these 2 babies, the 50D or the Rebel t1i.

As for my next lens, I'm not really sure, I definitely need another zoom lens, but the ones I'm looking into seem to be super expensive, so if anyone has any recommendations I'd really appreciate it! I was also considering either the 85mm f/1.8 or 100mm f/2.0 prime lens, but I'm not sure if they would be much different than my 50mm f/1.4. So much research!

To all the people who have expanded their photography businesses (or who want to), do you have any tips or advice for me? I know that getting out there and just doing it is the main thing, but I'd love to learn how some of you did it, as far as the equipment you started out with, what types of shoots, building the portfolio, etc.

Well that's all for me now, only a 3 day work week then we are off to NB for the holidays! Hope to be back on here before I go though, so until then enjoy your Monday!

Snap snap,
G.