Well, another year has arrived. 2024 is gone and 2025 is here. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve wondered how I would spend my New Year’s Eve. It’s been a while since I’ve done anything on New Year’s but look at the Twilight Zone, hang out at my aunt’s, or just stay in with my mom, who I used to live with, and pass the night uneventfully. This year though was going to be different. One of my friends had informed me of a Salsa Dance party that they were going to be going to and invited me out. The tickets were only $20 so I said why not even though I haven’t danced salsa in at least 5 years and to be honest even then only knew the basic step. But I told myself, whatever, go have fun. Be around people. You’re only 31 years old. Use your youth before you lose it.

However, as the sun began to set on New Year’s Eve and I left B&H Camera for possibly the last time till 2026 (one of my New Year’s resolutions is to not buy any new camera gear in 2025), I was tired and not feeling up to socializing with others (I hope this doesn’t become routine, I already don’t socialize much anyway). When it began to rain that pretty much put the nail in the coffin for me going out for the night and I hoped my friend wouldn’t mind going alone (turns out he didn’t go either). So I settled in for another quiet New Year when my eye fell onto a backpack in the corner of my bedroom.

This is no ordinary backpack. It’s part of the Westcott FJ200 Strobe 1 light Backpack Kit that I picked up a couple of weeks before at the New Jersey Camera Show (I’ll write about my experience there in a future blog post). I'‘m what you call a natural light photographer which is short for ‘I’m scared of using lighting setups because I have no idea what I am doing’ but I was convinced that I should attempt to learn how to do it. I used it couple of times before on myself with some of the gels provided. Thought the results were pretty cool.

Now I had another idea brewing. Photographing my mother as the New Year came in. This I assumed would be no easy task as my mother doesn’t like taking photos and is even more against them being posted anywhere. She has recently been more open to the idea of me taking photos even though she tells me to delete most of them. So I marched into her room and announced my intention of taking her portrait, which she pushed back half-heartedly but to my surprise agreed while making me promise not to blind her like before. What she was referring to was embarrassing but also a learning moment for me. This would not be my first time having her in front of my softbox. The first time I was proudly demonstrating my new setup and had her sit for a portrait. In my excitement, I forgot to check the power levels on the FJ-200 which unfortunately was at full power pretty close to her face. As you can imagine I got no portrait that day so note to self: always check the settings of your lights before triggering them.

Thankfully, there was no repeat of that mistake and we were able to get thru a session with no issues.

Are they perfect? No, but I like them. Not bad I think for the first time with someone not myself and one light. The most important thing wasn’t that I got good images that are not only a tribute to her and her faith in God but that I got to spend time with my mother. If there is one thing I’ve learned over the years is that you never know how much time you are going to have with someone. They could be here one day and gone the next. That’s why going into the new year we all should take the time to appreciate the people in our lives that we love and are important to us. Cheris that time together. And that is one of the reasons I love photography so much. Not only did it allow me to spend time with my mother but it also helped me freeze those moments in time so for me and the rest of the family to view in time to come. As the new year gets underway, I hope to capture more moments in time that I’ll look back on and be glad I had a camera to capture them.

- Justin

Welcome 2025!

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