As we are coming up on the close of another decade, I’ve noticed a bunch of reflection and response by bloggers and podcasters of what the last 10 years have produced and even some speculation on where the next 10 are going. I find it amusing of how we as people tend to benchmark our lives with well rounded metric year and decade numbers. Its as if we don’t think in terms of decades unless the current one doesn’t end in a 9, but this one does and reflection is good.

It really is incredible all that’s happened in the last 10. In 1999 the big talk was Y2K. Despite that I think most of us were excited about the direction of the internet and other technology. I must say that 10 years later its been impressive. We’ve seen wild advances in digital photography and video and their respective distribution online. 10 years ago I had little to do with video because it was largely unaffordable. Digital still cameras existed, but were pretty costly as well. The resolution wasn’t so hot and film was still the heart of commercial photography.

The technology has been largely overhauled, but have the actual skills of photography and image making progressed much in the last 10 years? This is kind of a controversial question. I’ll be positive and say that yes it has. Not fundamentally as a science so much, but the accessibility to equipment and the evolution of social networks like Flickr have brought a whole new group of professional and amateur photographers to the table. Its opened up the fun of making photographs to a large number of people in a way similar to George Eastman with Kodak back in the day. Has the quantity gone up? Absolutely. Has the quality? I think so, but not all would agree. Is it important to break these down – no.

Does any of this matter? Not as much as people make it out to.

What really is important here is how we benchmark ourselves. How has your creative talent improved over the last 10 years? This is a highly subjective question, but one we need to ask ourselves. We all have different ways of answering this. Some of them good some of them critical. But the really exciting prospect is where is your own work going in the NEXT 10 years.

I’ve had a nice week away from home to think about all this. I have big plans and ideas and a lot of enthusiasm. The important thing for me is that I find some quiet time over the next few weeks to start turning these things into tangible tasks and reality. This is key. I think its great to be excited. Its inspiring. But what’s really great is when you can sustain that enthusiasm and start to build results. You will surprise yourself. A 10 year chunk is an important one. I’ll be 10 years older the next time this obligatory reflection comes up. Its important to control your path and destiny as much as life allows.

Here’s to the next 10!