Ken here.  It's the end of December, just after Christmas (ok, I wrote this before Christmas).  I've been spending a lot of time looking back at the year, and forward.  It's been a year of lessons for me in the way of starting a small business and photography.  At the beginning of 2018 I could've told you about the rule of thirds, exposure, contrast, shutter speed, natural light, and manual focusing.  Now I can tell you about the golden ratio, aperture, off camera flash, shadowing, staging, light painting, color temperature, editing in Lightroom, and making composite photographs.  I've watched countless hours of youtube tutorials and picture reviews (I learn about as much hearing about what people have done wrong and right as I do when someone is telling me what I should be doing).  I've read, and practiced what I've watched and read to some minor extent. 

   In the coming year I'll keep watching, and learning, and practicing.  I'll be diving deep as I can stand into Photoshop while trying to keep pictures looking moderately organic-not over-saturated, fake, or HDR looking.  Over the next month I'll be building a product photography portfolio, and then as Spring rolls in I'll be working on expanding into landscape and real-estate/architecture, it's going to be a busy year. 

   I also went from knowing nothing about starting a small business to knowing just enough to be dangerous.  Angel has done more research into the legal needs of a starting small business.  I spent a lot of late-night hours looking through the North Carolina Secretary of State website as well as a few other free resources.  It was a long, tedious, but enlightening process, but finally we seem to have everything mostly set up (minus the website that we're still putting the trimmings on).  Now we plan for 2019.  Trying to schedule mini-sessions around the kid's school and my work schedules.  Looking into the future at upcoming holidays and potential movie blockbusters. 

   It's all exciting, and I live for exciting.  The thing about exciting is usually for me it's not exciting until my anxiety starts fluttering and fear sets in, in slow building waves.  I'm not a suicidal thrill seeker, but in the past, before children, I was known as an adrenaline junkie.  Children change things, and the things that used to be enticing-like rappelling off a 100' cliff, now are terrifying, but all the more exciting.  I'm still working my current job at an aircraft manufacturing plant.  I still have a remodeling job at our home to finish.  I will have pressing things until the day I die.  Renideo is about finding a way to shine, and smile back.  Sometimes it's reflecting light of a beating sun, and other days it's flashes of lightning.  As a poet I rarely put my art out for the world to see, and I never asked for money for it (even though a lot of people have told me I should).  If I were being honest I wouldn't say "it's not that good," as I sometimes say in a feeble effort to remain humble.  If I were being honest I would say "because I'm scared."  I have a vicious love/hate for being critiqued, and am probably my own worst critic.  Fear is a terrible thing to be controlled by, but mild fear a great thing to have humming in your mind under control.  It helps keep you sharp, focused, bringing small amounts of adrenaline into your mind and body to give you your best performance. 

   We're coming to the change of the year.  A time of resolutions and reflections.  For a lot of people it becomes a lot of regret and quickly broken promises.  Don't make resolutions, make plans, and execute them.  The most successful people take life on in an aggressive fashion.  Even the Mother Teresa's and the Desmond Doss's of the world were aggressive in their missions of mercy and compassion.  It's an aggressive drive that pushes one foot forward in front of another until you've walked 2100 miles or run a marathon or completed the school year, or just made it through a work project successfully.  That doesn't mean leap before you look, that doesn't mean to be wreckless, and it doesn't mean not to use some amount of safety precaution.  It means to be bold, be smart, and to be strong-even in your weaknesses.  Merry Christmas, everyone, and Happy New Year.