Probably the biggest effort near the end of the year for me was decided on what images I was going to select as my most memorable images.  It's just hard for me to select images, especially during a year when I had a lot of images to choose from.  Before I selecting any images, I reflected and then created a mind map of my reflections.  This contemplative mindset is something that I hope to continue to cultivate during 2017.

And then I had a few more preparatory things to do before the year ended.  

• I changed to a new external hard drive, which conveniently was almost full.  
• I started a new Lightroom catalog for 2017.  
• I made some minor changes to my Zenfolio website, changing the banner headline to reflect 2017 and changing my blog welcome.  I briefly went through and made sure that the picture galleries taken during 2016 were labelled correctly.  I created my monthly galleries for PAD 2017.
• I set up a new monthly challenge group on Flickr and posted my first photo taken on Jan 1 on that site.  
• I created a slideshow celebrating my memorable images of 2016 and posted the images on Zenfolio

Going through this contemplation and cleaning process was important for me.  It gave me a chance to review images.  It showed me some gaps that I had in my files.  Most importantly, it re-iterated that I had some very special moments during 2016.  And sometimes at unexpected times.  

It also re-itereated how important it is for me to have some sort of image capture device with me at all times.

So, what do I envision happening in 2017.

• New Photography Challenges with a new Flickr group.  We are taking a new approach this year with a broad monthly theme followed by self-identified weekly challenges.  The January broad challenge is an area of photography that you would like to improve.  Based on a recent visit to a photography gallery where college students were using old-fashioned darkroom techniques for their B&W photos, I decided to concentrate on B&W.  So far, with just a few days into it, this is an interesting and stretching approach.  It has already caused me to see things differently as I contemplate B&W composition considerations rather than relying on color.  I am hoping that this new monthly broad theme approach will stretch me as well as members of the group.
• Continuing with my approach to Photos-A-Day where I take at least one photo every single day and post these on Zenfolio.  As per previous years, the Photo Challenges in my group will influence a lot of my photo taking and photo making this year.
• Start a book based on either Photoautobiography or Photo Memoir.  I have just started to roughly outline what it will include and how I plan to create and organize this a bit differently from other Memoirs that are out there.
• Scan old family photos (which may be found within Photoautobiography or my Photo Memoir in some way)
• Continue to explore Contemplative Photography and just plain contemplation.
• Continue the Photography as a Spiritual Practice group and try to stretch the group to use contemplative practices with their photography
• Take at least one photography workshop this year!
• Yet to be defined, discover areas where I want to stretch my creative expression.  Try areas that I normally avoid, like night photography and portraiture.
• Find some photos that I want to print and explore different ways of printing like aluminum and fabric.

And let me re-visit this list six months from now and see how I am doing!