January

For the past month, nearly everyday, I have attempted to produce an “Image of the day”. Travelling locally, I have always sought out areas that were not crowded or where I could easily maintain my distance. I have travelled no further than Hill Head, Hampshire to the west, Butser Hill near Petersfield, Hampshire to the North and Goodwood, Sussex to the East. Some might consider this not staying local, government advice is to keep your exercise or outings local. I see the isolation and reduced lack of contact in these spaces I visited as good practice. Better to be alone and in the open than in a crowded area where there is little chance of avoiding others. Where I have stopped and got into conversation with people, I believe they have been grateful for the interaction. On one occasion we spent twenty minutes watching a Kingfisher sitting preening itself on a branch.

The areas and places that I have visited have been limiting in some respects, apart for the reasons I have already mentioned. These choices limited my approach to mainly landscapes or seascapes. It will be nice to travel further afield, photograph different things and be with people without fear. Some days have been more successful than others. On the good days five or six images have been good enough to process from each shoot. Out in all weathers, I have challenged myself to meet my goal. Returning home, I download the files via Photo Mechanic where the files are captioned and keywords added. The images are then exported and processed through Adobe Lightroom. Images that I feel will work better as black & white versions are processed using Nik Software, Silver Efex 2.

My final choice of image is then posted to my social media accounts, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin and Facebook. More recently, I have been posting an alternative choice to my Facebook business page. The images, I believe have been well received. All the social media accounts bar Twitter have had a healthy responses to the images. I will persevere with Twitter and hope to raise my profile further there.

As part my plan, I will be creating a portfolio of images on the recent work page of this website, it will feature some of the alternative choices and unpublished images. Also, I am also going to refresh my shop page, again here with twenty of the best images from January and offer them up for sale. Prices will start at £24.87 including P&P for an A4 print. I have some other ideas to promote my work but I will see what the response to the shop is.

As for February, I will be out there, trying to maintain my “image of the day” regime and hopefully not repeating myself too much. Working the area I have chosen for that day, harder and in more detail and perhaps finding new things and places to photograph along the way.