Belated New Year's resolutions. And ice.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2010 brings all of your resolutions a lot closer to reality. On my side, I'm hoping this year will be a photography-filled one, one a few fronts:

1. Project 52: Photo Idea Index
A few months ago, I decided to take on one mini photo project a week. That failed to last very long. So this year, one of my photography resolutions is a Project 52. And, to give me more direction and inspiration, I am using Jim Krause's Photo Idea Index. The idea is that each month will have a theme inspired by one chapter of the book, and within each month, every weekly project will explore a different aspect of each theme. Since there are only 9 chapters in the book, some will take me more than month, as follows:

• January: Point of view
• February: Establishing environment
• March: Capturing composition
• April: Capturing composition
• May: Attracting attention
• June: Picturing people
• July: Thinking creatively
• August: Thinking creatively
• September: Light
• October: Light
• November: Camera variables
• December: Digital effects

2. Photo of the Month project
Between bouts of bronchitis, Christmas, New Year's Eve, work and pet related drama, Jeff and I have been in a photography rut over the past 1-2 months. So, to hopefully jump-start our creativity, I've proposed a photo of the month project; the idea is that we go on at least one photo walk together every month, and we will each choose our best photo each month; this photo will be both posted on our respective blogs, and printed and framed on our respective coffee tables for the following month.

3. The Cat Chronicles
Even during a photographic dry spell, my two kitties are the subjects I can never get tired of shooting. I don't anticipate this will ever slow down, so expect cat updates to become a regular part of this blog. Consider this your fair warning.

4. Portfolio building
Another one of my resolutions is to have a portfolio put together by the summer. For this, I will need to not only take new photos, but also go through my old ones, categorize them, and pick out the portfolio-worthy ones. Some of these might go up on here as well.

And speaking of older photos, Christmas in Ottawa brought with it an odd mix of temperatures that led to everything being coated in a thick layer of ice for about one night. Jeff and I jumped -- or, rather, wobbled and slipped -- at the opportunity to nip out to Confederation Park and document the event. The results are below: