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2018 Review – Ups and Downs

It’s nearing Christmas and time for the traditional end of year review, getting in a bit early this year but I’m also going to try and put a bit more thoughtful introspection into this one, rather than just listing all the good things that have happened.

That said, the year did start off with a few highs, writing articles for both Outdoor Photography and Amateur Photographer magazines, my Sherwood book being published then selling out and there were more bits of good news throughout the year too, with a third place in International Garden Photographer of the Year, commended in Outdoor Photographer of the Year, a series of successful talks, three images being included in an exhibition in Nottingham and a highly commended image at the British Wildlife Photography Awards.

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Over Owler Tor and Bolehill Quarry

A couple of weekends ago I met up with a pair of Darrens (Darren Rose and Darren Ciolli-Leach) over in the Peak District for a sunrise photography session. We decided to start off at Surprise View and Over Owler Tor, to see if there would be anything exciting going on at dawn, before heading down to Bolehill Quarry as the light came up.

I was at a bit of a loss initially, with a wide landscape view in front of me, it’s not something I’m used to shooting, the horizon was fairly flat and there wasn’t much detail in the sky, so my only real shot from sunrise was looking right down at a puddle of water in the rock at my feet.

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Palm House

On Friday I was at Kew Gardens for the launch of the IGPOTY exhibition, more on that in a future blog, but I decided to take my little Fuji X-M1 with the fantastic 27mm 2.8 pancake lens along to take a few snaps of the exhibition, plus I’d left myself a couple of hours extra before my train in case there were any photo opportunities.

A lot of photographers would relish the opportunity to have a couple of hours in London with a camera, but I couldn’t be more uncomfortable at the thought of street photography, architecture isn’t my bag either and flat midday light plus a wide angle lens isn’t what I’d usually choose for photographing trees.

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2017 Year Review

I like writing these yearly reviews as much for myself as anything, looking back through the previous ones is a great way to track your progress both in terms of favourite photos from the year but also thought processes and achievements, hopefully they’re of some interest to others too.

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Mountains from Molehills

My local Nottinghamshire landscape isn’t the most exciting for a photographer, especially when you’re seeing epic vistas posted on social media every week from people who can travel a lot, or live with the Highlands on their doorstep. It’s easy to get jealous and blame your surroundings for lack of inspiration. We have plenty of good forests and woodland which I love to shoot, but I wanted to create something different.

Having tried some more abstract techniques including multiple exposures and intentional camera movement over the past year or so I had been playing with the idea of trying to make an alternate landscape from my local area. I’ve done a couple of small projects recently and put some focus into the idea of creating something from nothing, but I wanted to do something bigger this time, I wanted to transport the viewer to one of those epic mountain vistas.

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Northumberland

Having just returned from a week in Northumberland I thought it would be worth a quick write up alongside some of my favourite images. I don’t often get out of Nottinghamshire with my camera, so a trip to the coast was a big change in subject for me – I was looking forward to the challenge of doing something different. It was a family holiday so most days I wasn’t concentrating on photography but I managed to squeeze a bit of camera time in.

Day 1

The first day was spent over on Holy Island meeting up with some more family, I just took my little Fuji X-M1 which is my walk around camera for when I don’t want to carry the big Canon, perfect for these sorts of occasions. I had a bit of a play with my body cap pinhole at various locations, but didn’t get anything that quite made the cut. To be honest I wasn’t expecting much photographically from that day, but in early afternoon a sea fret came in, I quickly grabbed a few shots including the two below before all visibility was gone.

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Year in Review – 2016

So nearly the end of the year and time for the traditional blog based round up of how my photography has gone over the last 12 months.

In 2015 I started to try and take photography seriously and this brought my first ever publication and first ever print sale, but I didn’t actually take many photos and I took almost none of my local area. I set some resolutions at the start of the year to try and fix this, basically take more photos, experiment more, enter competitions and a more personal one to capture more family moments – I think I’ve done pretty well at all of these.

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Print Giveaway

To celebrate a year where I feel my photography has taken some big steps forward and to say thanks for all the likes, shares and comments I’m giving away two A3 prints of photos I’ve taken this year.

There’s a pinned post on both my Facebook and Twitter pages, all you have to do to enter is make sure you’re following me then like/retweet those posts before Sunday 20th November. One unique winner will be chosen at random from each post, entering on both will increase your chances of winning one!

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On the Doorstep

I’m on a bit of a mission of self discovery in my photography at the moment, the last 6 months or so has been a huge learning curve for me in terms of subject, style and processing. This has lead to a lot of new work which I’m happy with but also long periods of self doubt and creative block.

A well known weekly competition on Twitter has been my driving force this year to take photographs every week, I know the majority of my entries don’t stand a chance but my resolution to enter every week has forced me to get out and take something I’m not ashamed to share even when I’m feeling uninspired, which is a massive positive.

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Keswick

I recently had a well earned break in Keswick in the Lake District, it was a family occasion to celebrate me turning 30 and our 8 month old daughter’s first holiday so photography wasn’t top of the agenda, but I knew I could squeeze in a couple of outings with the camera and was hoping to make the most of this to bank a few shots with the amazing scenery that we don’t have here in Nottingham.

We stopped with my parents in Yorkshire on the way there and back and on the first of these I suggested a drive to West Burton as I wanted to check out the well known waterfall there. The weather wasn’t brilliant but there was still good potential and I spent a while trying some different angles, it was also my first use of the new Manfrotto 190XPROB tripod in the field which did a great job. I’ve seen some beautiful autumnal shots of these falls so tried something different with a dark black and white take on the scene.

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