Looking back on 2019 and looking forward to 2020...

A little later than I had originally intended (I should know by now that Christmas and New Year with two kids means that time is in short supply for things like this!), but thought I’d briefly reflect on 2019 and think about what’s next for 2020. Let’s start by looking back…

On 2nd January 2019 I wrote a blog post out lining a few aims and objectives for the coming year, so how successful was I in achieving them?

1) Do more video work.

TICK. Well, I did do “more video work” in the sense I actually filmed, edited and published a YouTube video. My trip to Scotland in the summer of 2019 to meet my mum’s real family gave me the perfect opportunity to experiment with creating a short film, particularly as I went without my wife and children. I was quite pleased with the end result (see below), but I’ve not created anymore since.

2) More street photography.

TICK. I’ve done more street photography here and in Spain over the past 12mths, but I still need to improve my approach. I’m still very much on phase 1 and phase 2 (see here), but I feel like I’ve improved a bit in this area.

3) Print more.

FAIL. I had good intentions to print and keep photos in a scrapbook, but I’ve just not kept on top of this and I’ve not printed anything for months.

4) Blog more.

FAIL. Again, same as above. I had good intentions, but it’s just not happened.

5) Discover new locations.

TICK. I’ve tried a couple of new locations over the past 12mths (Botany Bay, Isle of Grain, Ashenbank Wood) but I do need to expand on this in 2020 and explore the county a bit more widely. I have some ideas in mind, but let’s see if I follow through on them.

6) Oh yeah, 365 Project type stuff.

SEMI-FAIL. Again, best intentions, but after over half the year I gave up and just lost all motivation. I think this wasn’t helped by restricting myself to black and white.

Over the course of 2019, I’ve really felt that my photography has improved a great deal and I’m starting to gain confidence in the quality of the images that I’ve created. I think partly this has been down to being better organised, particularly for sunrise shoots, as well as honing my technique. In terms of organisation, I’ve tried to make sure I am on location over half-an-hour before sunrise (rather than minutes before sunrise) as I appreciate now that often the best light is just before the sun peeps out over the horizon. I’ve also taken to making a hot breakfast in the morning and plonking it into a Therma-pot so that I can have breakfast on the go rather than leaving the house after I’ve eaten it. This has certainly helped to ensure that I arrive on location in good time and can concentrate on getting a good composition for that early morning light (as an aside, I still much prefer to sunrise to sunset).

To give an example of how I think I’ve improved, this is a shot from early 2019 taken in Dungeness (I arrived after the best light had happened):

And here’s one taken of the same boat in Dungeness, but this time I arrived in plenty of time before sunrise:

There’s probably not a whole lot in it, but I much prefer the second image to the first. I think I took it after the sun had risen (and therefore around the same time as the first), but because I had arrived early I had time to play around and get some different compositions and better evaluate the conditions, rather than rushing to get a shot before the best of the light had gone.

I also feel like my woodland photography improved greatly this year. We have some great local woods with lots of potential and plenty of silver birch trees dotted around (as well as wild deer, which is always breath-taking to see). For example, here are a few woodland shots I took in 2018:

And here are some taken in 2019:

I definitely feel there has been a big step forward there (to the extent that I even printed off one of the above and gave it to a family member as a gift for Christmas). I still feel I need to work it more, but I think spending virtually every weekend in the woods for the best part of a month really helped me to get a clearer sense of how to compose decent woodland shots.

Overall I feel strides have been made, and I am growing in confidence to the extent I am mulling over selling prints in 2020 (although it remains to be seen whether I am actually prepared to take that step just yet). The key for me has been getting out regularly, practicing all the time, working some scenes that I know well until I get shots that I am really happy with and being more organised in my trips out. And I haven’t even mentioned the biggest change in my shooting this year…

Early in 2019 I switched up my trusty D3200 for the D7200. A big leap in terms of what the camera does, but still a crop-sensor Nikon. I’ve been absolutely thrilled with the camera so far. Of course in many ways it’s not about the camera but the person behind it, but it’s undoubtedly the case that the D7200 has made a number of things easier. For example, the increased number of focus points have helped greatly (from 11 on the D3200 to 51), as has the resolution on live view (I’m better able to zoom in on screen and manually focus than I was on the D3200 which tended to look very fuzzy after hitting the zoom button a couple of times). Much as I loved the D3200, I certainly feel the D7200 has helped me to take things up a level.

As for 2020, I’m not sure where I’ll be 12mths from now (in an abstract rather than literal sense!). I want to start exploring the possibility of selling images, but I’m not going to commit to that just yet. I also want to challenge myself by exploring new locations and getting some new compositions. But beyond that, I think I just want to keep practicing, improving and keeping to my new regime of getting out early and not rushing my shots! We’ll see where that takes me…

All the best for 2020!

Scotland, family discoveries and a bit of photography...

A couple of weeks back I took myself off on a long drive to Scotland for a few days away. For those that aren’t aware, a few years before my mother passed away, she had managed to track down her biological mother. Sadly her mother had already passed away by the time she discovered who she was (she had been told that her mother died in a car crash when she was young, it turned out she actually passed away 25 years ago so mum had missed the chance to meet her), but she had also managed to track down a brother (shared mother, different father).

After mum passed away, I had intended to go up to Scotland and learn more about her biological mother and meet family members we didn’t know we had. The opportunity finally presented itself to me this summer, so I booked a few nights in a Premier Inn in Dundee (topped up with a few nights staying at a good friend’s house) and made plans to make the trip north (a drive of approximately 500 miles!). Of course, this also presented an opportunity to explore new locations and give my photography a bit of a boost (summer is a difficult time of year for sunrise and sunset photohgraphy). Not only was it an opportunity to take photos in some new locations, I also used it as an opportunity to shoot a vlog.

Edinburgh at night Calton Hill.

Making a vlog has been something I’ve been thinking about for some time. I’m not wholly comfortable with the idea, I’m not keen on being filmed and putting my face out there. I’ve always much preferred writing as a means of communication, for a variety of reasons (the ability to more carefully craft what I want to communicate, for example). I also wasn’t sure I had the required equipment to do it well. I’ve done a little bit of filming at work for things here and there, but they have been made using a smartphone. I don’t have mics or a camera dedicated to video. However, I purchased a Manfrotto mini-tripod and smartphone clamp a little while back thinking they might help in terms of recording footage, so I thought that maybe the combination of a decent smartphone camera and a mini tripod might make it do-able.

Something I have tried to always do since taking my photography more seriously, is to take on new challenges. Whether it be going up to people in the street and asking if I can take their picture, or trying to take candid street photographs, I’m keen to try to learn new skills and take my photography further. Of course, shooting video doesn’t necessarily help with my photography, but I figured it would be good to learn some new skills and try to shoot and edit a short video to see how I get on (there may be additional benefits in my workplace too).

The Angel of the North.

I tried throughout the trip to take a variety of different types of video. I shot some time lapse video of the journey there, and a couple of locations I visited, as well as shooting footage of me talking to camera. One thing I found tricky throughout was trying to remember to shoot video footage wherever I found myself. My priority was always the photography, the video was a secondary element to documenting my trip. This meant I sometimes missed out on recording things that I think would have been good additions to the fininshed video, but I was fairly relaxed about that, not least because I wanted to keep the video relatively short.

Editing the video was a whole different ballgame. I’ve plenty of experience of using iMovie on iOS, but I’d never played around with iMovie on a Mac, which was far more complex in what it could do. I found some elements of creating the video a bit frustrating (sometimes trimming elements seemed more difficult than they should have been - but I’m not sure if that was down to me or the software, and I found it difficult to insert text elements exactly as I’d like), and the overall process took much longer than I anticipated. I think I must have spent a couple of hours playing around with the footage and getting it just right (and even then I have noticed some errors since I published it). One thing I was quite lucky with was the soundtrack. Apple provide an increasing number of free music via iMovie that you can incorporate into your project. Music can be an absolute nightmare in terms of repurposing on video, not least due to licensing, and most options for freely available music come with the requirement to pay or subscribe to a service (as far as I can tell anyway - do let me know in the comments if there are other options!). Fortunately there was at least one track I could use in iMovie that seemed to me to match the mode of the piece.

I’m not sure whether this will be the first and only or first of many, but I think I learnt a lot about putting one together, even if this one wasn’t a complete success. And, more than anything else, it’s a nice way to document the trip and the things I learnt about my family, not least for our children who were unable to join me on this occasion. Hopefully we’ll have a family holiday in Scotland in due course. Not sure about going for an 11hr car journey with two kids in the car though…

Goodbye 2018, Hello 2019

So I decided to write a blog post. I’ve not been doing too well on that recently. A quick look back shows that I kinda abandoned my posts on a trip to Spain after Part I. That’s not the best is it? It begs the question what is the point of having a blog if I don’t ever use it. So, I’m going to use it more. There. Straight off the bat. One New Year’s resolution established and committed to. I will blog more regularly.

This year I have been doing a lot of looking back. With my mother passing away in February, it’s only natural to spend a lot of time reflecting on the past. I don’t want to do that too much here. I’ve spoken about my mother and life and so on elsewhere, but it is important to acknowledge the sheer weight of the loss upon all aspects of my life, and the extent to which it continues to have an impact.

Looking back over the year in terms of my photography and I really feel like I’ve taken some big leaps forwards. Investing in some new gear (like, filters and stuff) has certainly helped to a degree, but the biggest impact has been the various YouTube channels I subscribe to. I’ve learnt so much from Thomas Heaton and Nigel Danson (for starters) that I feel like I have really come on in terms of technique and skills over the course of the year. I’m thinking about my compositions far more than I was in 2017. Now it’s much less a case of pointing and clicking, and far more thought around the composition of images (I still have some way to go obvs).

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Samphire How at sunset…with strategically placed sheep. Good work, sheep.

I’ve also pushed myself to try out things that I would never have been comfortable with in the past. Street portraits, for a start, were something I’d never have considered before, either because of the sheer fear of approaching strangers, or because of my concerns around privacy (which is a bit of a thing for me). Ok the results weren’t spectacular, but I was fairly happy with the images I got and I’ve learnt a bit more about taking portraits, something that isn’t something I’m generally that into.

I’ve also been getting my head around using an ultra wide-angle lens and thinking more about how I can put together interesting compositions using it. Alongside investment in some graduated neutral density filters, I feel like my landscape photos are getting better, I’m much happier with the images I’ve produced in 2018. I guess the fact I’ve printed some out, slapped them into framwes and chucked them on a couple of walls in the house says it all. My technique has definitely improved too. Rather than just flicking it onto auto-focus, I’m getting used to manual focus with live view to ensure photos are as sharp as they can be (or sometimes relying on auto-focus but also using live view to get the focus just right).

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Reculver Towers at sunrise…one of two slapped in a frame during 2018 and hung in our house.

So, what next…?

I was fortunate to get a 10 stop Cokin filter, which I’m looking forward to chucking in front of my wide-angle lens and capturing some smooth long exposure coastal scenes, as well as a polariser (also for the wide-angle lens) for that glare suppression and blue sky popping.

I’ve also been mulling over more broadly some things I should look into doing in 2019 to take things a step further. Here are a few things floating around my head…

1) Do more video work - I have mixed thoughts about this. I have a (currently dormant) YouTube channel that I’d like to start using more of, but I’m conscious I don’t have the equipment (or confidence!) that many YouTube photographers have at their disposal. So jury is out on whether I will actually do anything on this in 2019. That said, one of the things I was looking forward to once I bagged the new iPhone XR was to play with video. We’ll see…

2) More street photography - I definitely want to do more of this after dipping my toes in the water in 2018. I feel I’ve got a bit more confidence now in tackling this kind of photography, I need to hone my skills quite a bit more, so I guess that means pushing myself out into the streets with a camera in hand…

3) Print more - I have a small Canon Selphy CP1300 at home which I’ve used fairly frequently (mainly for casual family pictures). But I’ve rarely printed and framed. I want to do more printing, chucking stuff in frames, small albums, little scrapbook type things…more physical, not just throwing everything online and being done with it.

4) Blog more - So if the video thing doesn’t happen (SPOILER ALERT: it won’t), the other thing I’ve been intending to do this year is to post more regularly, like…once a week. A weekly blog. On a specific day. A bit like all those great vlogs I watch that are released on a weekly/bi-weekly schedule. I’m going to do the same. I’m going to go out on photo trips at weekends, do a write-up, post it. Job done. I figure it’ll help me learn, bit of reflective writing and all that. And maybe it will be useful to others that are thinking of picking up a camera and start playing around with it. I think I might just do that. BLOGGING. IT’S BACK.

5) Discover new locations - I need to do this. Try out a few new places. Now I have a phone with a GPS thingy that actually works (SAY WHAT NOW?!), I might go out and explore a little more. Go beyond my usual locations. Try something new. Keep it fresh. Because, you know, same locations time after time after time after time after time after time after time after time after time after time…well, you know…

6) Oh yeah, 365 Project type stuff - Ok, normally this kind of thing isn’t really my bag. I’m not hugely into commitments over a long period of time (well, there are exceptions…)…routine gets a bit tiresome for me. But I have been persuaded to the 365 photo project the year. I’m having a crack at it, but don’t hold your breath I’ll last more than a month (tbh a week will be quite something). You can find my half-arsed 365 effort on Instagram at captureyield365 (yeah, imaginative innit).

So yeah, let’s see how this all goes. One thing is for certain, I don’t want to stand still. Well, unless that works for the composition anyway…

Happy 2019!