Each year I set a photo goal for myself. The purpose is to challenge myself to do new things or to see common things in a new way. Sometimes the purpose is simply to make sure I keep my hands on the camera.

I photographed my daughter, Lauren, every day for the first year of her life. I did it again when she was a senior in high school, starting the day she registered for classes and continuing until she headed off to college. The requirement I had for myself was that all the images had to be shot in black and white and printed to 5x7 by me.

I bought a Leica rangefinder after years of using autofocus cameras and made a project for myself where I would photograph whoever sat across from me when I ate out at a restaurant. My thinking was that my subjects wouldn't be moving much and I could practice focusing. All the images had to be shot in black and white and hand printed.

When my niece, Rachel, was born in February of 2004 I decided again to do a photo-a-day project which would record her growth over the course of her first year. By the time I began this project I was shooting completely digitally so required of myself that her images be converted to black and white and printed by me on an Epson 2200. This gave me a great opportunity to get good at the Photoshop skills required for digital manipulation and learn the nuances of my printer at the same time. In that first year I took over 20,000 images.

This past year I began a project that will span at least one and likely several years. I have set for myself the goal of inviting friends and family into my studio to be photographed. The purpose is to challenge myself to work with many different personality types while honing my skills at studio lighting. This project began on the morning of my 41st birthday with a sitting I did of my parents.

Click here to see this project.