Holy Moly……What a Year
In terms of photography, 2021 was certainly my most productive and notable year to date. As you will see from my image gallery, I have a strong preference to black and white photography in particular the ‘Fine Art’ genre. With all the restrictions as a result of the two lockdowns at the height of the pandemic, I took the opportunity to spend the time to improve my post processing skills as I knew this was an area I needed to up my game. By the time the first lockdown commenced, I had already became drawn to the Black and White Fine Art genre and had a strong desire to learn more about creating images of this type.
I enrolled in a number of tutorials produced by established and well respected photographers and had many light bulb moments over these months as the demystification of post processing took place, in particular, around the use of Photoshop. As well as gaining a better understanding of how to approach my post processing work, it also enabled me to start thinking about the final image when I am out at a location as pre-visualisation was something I never really considered much previously.
As I said in a previous blog, I am an introvert by nature but over the last two years I have become more comfortable in sharing my work and this year has resulted in some of my work being recognised. In the near future, I will see my first ever image printed in a book as part of a collection of images from the Let’s Create’ photography group on Facebook which was founded by a wonderful photographer and creator called Mali Davies. My image of the windmill at Lytham St Annes was one of my favourite images of 2020 and was taken during the time travel between the 2 lockdown periods in the UK was permitted.
I was then honoured to be contacted by Derek Michalski, the editor of LEMAG, an online photography magazine dedicated to long exposure photography and invited to submit my image of the Imperial War Museum (North) at Salford Quays, that I had posted in the LEMAG group page on Facebook. The image was subsequently published in the monthly edition of the magazine in June 2021. I was then contacted a second time by Derek and invited to submit another image I had posted online, this time of the underside of the Humber Bridge. As short time after this submission to LEMAG, Derek informed me the image would not only be published but it would also be on the front cover of the magazine for its August 2021 edition. I was extremely humbled to have my image selected , however this was not the last surprise that 2021 had in store for me.
In July 2021, I took the decision to enter two images into the International Photography Awards and submitted these into the non-professional category for architecture. October duly arrived and as I was beginning to think, I would not hear anything back, I received two emails from the IPA that literally floored me. The first email informed me that my image taken at the new Exhibition Conference Arena in Aberdeen has received an honourable mention in the Architecture-Buildings category. On opening the second email my chin dropped as I had been awarded 1st place in the Architecture-Bridges category for my Humber Bridge image. Being awarded the 1st place also resulted in me progressing to the final overall award for Architectural Photographer of year for non-professionals and although I never won, it was extremely pleasing to be recognised by the IPA judges in relation to my work.
I would also like to take the opportunity at this time to thank a photographer who is a tremendous source of inspiration to me and that is Lynne Luxon-Jones. As a follower of Lynne’s photography channel on Youtube, I watched a vlog Lynne had done from the Humber Bridge which enabled me to pre-visualise an idea that I had for an image from here. Without Lynne’s visit to this location, chances are I would have went to a different location instead of taking the opportunity to head down to Hull one foggy morning in July last year when staying in East Yorkshire.
Looking back, I know 2021 was a good year but still the feeling of Imposter Syndrome stalks me for some reason time to time, but I guess that’s one of the side effects of being an introvert. One thing for certain, I know there is still much to learn and even though it’s been a honour to have some of my work recognised in this way, I also know there will be times when the idea, the planning and the final image won’t pan out. A quote I came across online sums up 2021 pretty well and is a good reminder to remain grounded, that quote being “don’t let success go to your head, and failure to your heart”