Sunday 1st January 2012

At the start of 2011, I set myself the challenge of taking a photo every day, and I succeeded! I was quite strict with myself, and tried as much as possible to take each photo during that day. A couple of times the photos were taken just after midnight, and a couple of times I forgot altogether but always had a photo of something even if it was a mobile phone photo of a broken banjo pick never destined for public viewing, which I'd use instead of taking something better a day late.

I really enjoyed this project and got a lot of satisfaction from it as well as learning lots. The aim was to ensure that I kept my photography varied instead of using my new camera to take the same kind of photos again and again, and it certainly fulfilled this. I found interest in fields I would never have otherwise known about, such as insect macrophotography. I was so pleased with my photography I set up a company and have had an ehibition and produced 2012 calendars for which I've had great feedback.

Having said this, I am not going to continue the photo-a-day into a new year as it was really time intensive, and many of my other interests suffered as a result. Also towards autumn I felt that my it was hindering me rather than helping... the things I wanted to photograph required more time to prepare for and plan, and I didn't have time to concentrate on. Nevertheless, it was never boring and some evenings at home when I didn't have any ideas and thought I'd exhausted what my house has to offer I still came up with something unexpected that I was proud of, this being the example that sticks in my head. Now though I look forward to having time to built on the areas that now interest me. Rest assued that even without daily blog updates I am still very much enthused by my photography and will still be working on ideas, keep your eye on my website for updates.

I've added a 'popular' posts widget on the right hand side so that you can see a taster of what I managed to produce. Underneath that is the tag list which is useful for browsing and searching, followed by the archive.

Thanks to all my followers for their support, and anyone who has added comments. I'll leave you with a bonus photo from New Year's Day (just), of the firework celebration in Zillertal, Austria. At almost exactly the stroke of midnight fireworks erupted all the way along the valley and up the hillside, and lasted for about half an hour, brilliant!

42mm, 30s, f/22, ISO 100

Tuesday 27th December 2011

This is my cousin Rob, and his youngest daughter Maisie. I love this photo, it's something a bit different and I think it conveys a nice sense of motion, an instance where the built in flash works really well.

I'm going on holiday to Austria tomorrow, I'll be taking my final few photos while I'm away, and I shall upload them once I'm back.

18mm, 1/15s, f/5.6, ISO 400

Saturday 24th December 2011

Chestnuts roasted on an open... BBQ! Yes, on Christmas Eve.

76mm, 5s, f/6.3, ISO 400

Sunday 18th December 2011

The musical accompaniment to the Powderkegs Border Morris side.

100mm, 1/200s (auto from aperture priority), f/5.6, ISO 800

Friday 16th December 2011

No transport is really ideal in these conditions!

50mm, 1/50s, f/6.3, ISO 400

Sunday 11th December 2011

Stained glass in Penkhull.

119mm, 1/4s, f/5.6, ISO 400

Saturday 10th December 2011

The Florence Colliery Band, playing valiantly in the freezing cold to an audience of 1 (and two more on the telephone)!

130mm, 1/15s, f/5.6, ISO 400

Monday 5th December 2011

Late rose in Tunstall.

169mm, 1/250s, f/6.3, ISO 200

Sunday 4th December 2011

Saggy roof tiles housing the workshops and steam engine at the Etruria Canal Museum.

85mm, 1/13s, f/8, ISO 400

Thursday 1st December 2011

Last month of the 365 blog! I went up to Hanchurch Woods because I had been told it was free of light pollution, and wanted to recce it as a star watching spot. Not exactly free of light polution, the orange glow is light reflecting off the clouds, but it made for a pretty photo!

18mm, 30s, f/11, ISO 200

Wednesday 30th November 2011

Pylon shot.

76mm, 1/40s, f/11, ISO 200

Sunday 27th November 2011

Water splashes in a fountain.

130mm, 1/400s, f/5.6, ISO 400

Saturday 26th November 2011

It questionable whether this is my best photo of the day, I have some nice ones of large lamps against a black background, but it's not every day I go to the rugby so I thought I'd post a rugby photo and this was my best one of those (shame about the official photographer in shot though). This is the New Zealand Ferns (left) and the England (right) ladies teams. England won 10-0 but New Zealand won this line-out.

184mm, 1/80s, f/6.3, ISO 800

Sunday 20th November 2011

Today was a relaxed but unexpectedly awesome day. We first went to Scaleber Force and went wild swimming behind the waterfall and into the pool. Then drove to Malham and walked to Janet's Foss and on up to Goredale. Here the mist fell and we just got to the road before the sun set, and managed to get back to the car in the misty twilight, neither of us having brought a torch. This is a photo of the beautiful Janet's Foss, the plunge section of the waterfall apparently being a screen of deposited rock on a layer of moss. I'm really pleased with this photo, in fact all the ones I took of Janet's Foss - it's hard to choose between them.

27mm, 0.8s, f/10, ISO 200

Friday 18th November 2011

The impressive Falcon Manor hotel in Settle, Yorkshire Dales.

20mm, 13s, f/8, ISO 200

Tuesday 15th November 2011

Stairs and pillars.

119mm, 0.5s, f/8, ISO 200

Monday 14th November 2011

Window graffiti in Hanley. I was just walking through the city centre, and thought 'oh that would make a good photo', so, as I often do, I just stopped in the middle of the street, got out my camera, and took a photo.

23mm, 1/15s, f/8, ISO 200

This was an editing error but I think it's fantastically brain melding. I've done it before but wasn't sure how, not I understand how I did it (although it still doesn't make total sense!) and also it had the lucky feature of being centred around an un-moving door.

Sunday 13th November 2011

The day dawned misty and the rock was damp which frustrated my climbing friends, but it was a bonus for me as it meant I got a stroll down Padley Gorge with a couple of mates, snapping away at the autumn colours and rushing cascades. I find HDR works really well with water, as does a polariser, so I stuck the tripod in the water and got this, showing the water flow and some of the lovely bright green vegetation.

21mm, 2.5s, f/20, ISO 200

Saturday 12th November 2011

I was hoping for a shot of the fireworks in the greater context of their location (the land outside the Peak Cavern show cave in the Peak District), but that wasn't to be. A lot of my shots were over exposed because I was trying longer exposures in order to get the background to burn in, but this one just happened to fill the frame and I like it for that.

18mm, 16s, f/16, ISO 400

Thursday 10th November 2011

I made it back up to the colliery tonight (see yesterday), but with a friend so that I wouldn't get scared off by any hissing noises (there was still much hissing, but I realised it was probably owls). This photo represents various things I've been working on, one being the colliery (see previous photos here and here), and one being a silhouette of a person (which I keep trying down a cave, and failing on). This is one shot, no HDR, just with a bit of 'dodging' in photoshop. I think it looks a little un-real, which I really like about it.

20mm, 30s, f/10, ISO 400