APOLOGY TIME
The first thing I feel I need to do is say sorry.
It feels very personal when a plan doesn’t come together so given that I made such a public announcement about giving landscape photography a go, its painful to admit that so far, it has been a washout. Quite literally.
I’m not really sure where to begin. I approached the autumn with such a positive mindset. Going into autumn, my favourite time of the year, I’d done a lot of legwork and research for locations here in the Lake District so that in between working shoots and client work, I’d be able to get up and out and amongst it.
Fair to say though that Autumn 2021 here has been pants. So far.
Firstly, I’m in the privileged position that while the place we currently live in has damp issues, it hasn’t been flooded such as some poor souls have in the last week. A months rainfall in 24 hours saw valleys recording close to record highs. In the north lakes, Basenthwaite Lake and Derwent Water became a connected body of water such was the level of run off in the valley.
Roads along with some new defences came close to being breached and ruined but so far, they’ve held. The issue and concern is that we aren’t even in the regular storm season yet. I feel that me moaning that the weather has been less than I’d hoped for regarding some photography would be best advised to be kept to a very British eye-roll and a ‘tut’.
Windy
Still, once the wind drops to acceptable levels I still intend to deliver on my plans of both a three minute video plus some photographs too. No-one ever said that it was easy and I’m still yet to really start up here.
As I said previously, I’m not going to be setting the world on fire with so many amazing and new places I’m sure, but there are worse ways to burn calories. I mean, I could just be furiously tweeting or shouting on socials about the state of the world. But there’s too many already doing that.
Instead, when I’ve had some spare time, I’ve been trying to get my head around the latest thing that is dividing photographers. NFT’s.
NFT? (Non-fungible token) – exactly.
I’ve distilled it down to my basic understanding that they’re as made up as the stock market. For far greater takes and research, read Jack Lowe’s excellent piece, this by Seth Godin and the energy element from Bitcoin News to see how I came to my opinion.
I’m not going to fall out with anyone over them. Live and let live and all that. Besides, I prefer a physical print and tangible assets but I guess that makes me an outdated dinosaur. But it would be remiss to not try and understand what is happening out there in a little more detail than one scroll on social.
And finally…
Finally, on the subject of prints, the shop is nearing completion. It did once exist on my site, then I thought had been relaunched when I changed the design and is now nearing completion just in time for Christmas.
One print project that is happening in November is in aid of charity. 100% of the limited prints plus my fees will be going to Cancer Research. With my wife having had breast cancer and this year achieving her fifth clear mammogram, we felt that it would be a fitting way to close that chapter and give something back to the amazing support network we had.
Until my next post, I hope you are keeping well and making the most of your photography wherever you are and whatever the weather may be.
All images taken on iPhone. Rubbish…
Fail often. You’ll learn quicker.
