Well that went fast. 2014 is in the rear-view mirror, and our road ahead stretches in some as-yet-to-be-determined path. Is it curved? Looped? Straight?

Trust me … I’m not trying to wax philosophical; I’m genuinely curious to see what this year brings for me and my family. Personally, I have goals for this blog (“Yes … of course you do. We’ve heard this before.”), and I have a plan in place to make sure I follow through with it.

To start off, I’ve mentioned that I’m a huge fan of photography. Lately, I’ve been shooting raw images as opposed to in-camera jpg images. Here’s a very clear demonstration as to why.

As you can see, this picture looks a little dark. Pretty, kind of haunting … but dark. The image below is what I was able to do in Photoshop with some raw processing.

I don’t know about you, but glowing trees? Very cool. Now I just need to go in and get rid of the now-obvious wires that are dangling in the background, but for now, I’m happy with this.

I learn more every time I play with my camera, open Photoshop, and dig around online for tutorials on better post-processing. This is how anyone gets good at whatever it is he or she wants to do. I want to be a better photographer and do better post-processing, so I study, learn, play, try, fail, and eventually succeed.

You can do this too. Not necessarily photography, but whatever you want to achieve. Think it, dream it, do it. Just get at it!

No, this was not designed to be a motivational speech. It just turned all Tony Robbins-like cuz … well, it is what it is. You can’t become better at something if you don’t try and practice.
Now go forth and conquer.