After doing a bit of planning ahead for 2024, I felt like reflecting on the year 2023 so far. In January this year I set myself a goal. My goal was and still is to create the foundations for a new business that hopefully and eventually can give me a ‘retirement’ income.

The job I have at the moment is not a bad one at all. I work online and as long as there is good internet, I am able to work where ever I want. No need to commute and to spend money spent on office outfits. A huge disadvantage is the lack of time freedom as it is essentially a job from 9-5.

So the aim is to ‘fix’ that with other income streams. I am aware that this is for many people a dream goal and it may not be as easy as it sounds. I am having a go and the year 2023 was the year to set up a few structures and work towards that goal.

Moving forward in the year 2023

During the first three months I have been focussing on my health and decluttering. Not literally decluttering but shifting unnecessary baggage from my mind and my computer. They do say, if you get rid of un-necessary clutter, you create space for new things. And somehow that happened and an iPhone photography course showed up in my social media feed.

It was affordable and I got stuck in to it when I finally caught covid in June. This little critter made me feel very tired so doing a course seemed a good way of passing the time. I even followed it up with an editing photo course. Very creative stuff and it motivated me to take pictures in a more focussed way.

I have to admit that I dabbled at photography since I was an eight year old. I grew up in a house with a dark room to develop pictures and I had a go at graphic design and photography at art school. You can read more about it at a later stage.

Being on a roll

Since then an online Finnish magazine chose two of my pictures and and published them in one of their online editions. One is the feature picture for this article and the other one is just below. I also have created an account with a stock photo company and I have now submitted close to 20 pictures.

To date, they have accepted 9 of them with a good rating and these nine pictures are now for sale. One photo got a rating of 4/4 and it happens to be the same picture that the Finnish magazine chose. Maybe it is indeed a good photo and you can see it just below.

I feel I am on a roll. I have even gone so far as making the decision to create a photo gallery website. And after a few weeks of brainstorming a business name with friends and family I have now registered a domain. More about that to come!

So if I draw the year 2023 to a close, I have done two photo courses and have 9 pictures for sale on a stock photo website. Two of my pictures are published in an online magazine and I registered a domain for a photo site. I feel that is a fair bit of progress!

There is more in the pipe line but I am not ready to get that off my chest. After all the year is not finished yet…

What do you reckon so far?

Marijke