Merry Christmas – A Year In Review

Firstly, I must apologise for being quiet this month on my website. I have been doing quick posts on social media, but for one reason or the other I haven’t got around to posting here. Anyway, I’m here now, so here’s a quick review of 2024 for you, which will bring you up to speed on where I am in life.

Almost A Year Back With Nikon
It was January 2024 that I left Fujifilm as my main camera and moved back to Nikon. After six years with Fujifilm, it was just time to move back to the system that I really loved, Nikon.

I intend to do a video on “A Year (back) with Nikon” when I get a chance, so watch out for that as I have so much to say about my return to Nikon.

Adopting Adobe Photoshop/ACR As My Main Editing Software
Who would have thought, that after years of using Darktable as my main software, and also using ON1 Photo Raw and Luminar products that I would be using Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw!

Don’t get me wrong, I still use and love Darktable, but as I’ve been doing more professional paid work, the move to Adobe has been a Godsend! Not only that, although I currently have it free for the year, in reality it’s cheap, costing less than half the price of a Dominos Pizza every month. And you get so much for it!

I’m going to some this up really quick on why I use it. You can see why it’s the product of choice by most professionals, it just works. Things like masking, object recognition, colour management, object removal and so much more work quickly and accurately, much more so than any of its nearest rivals. It saves you time, gives you possibilities you didn’t have, and has the everything you’ll ever need and more.

Portraits, Weddings And Events
2024 seen me moving into the much more profitable and professional sector of photography, but it all started with me doing more and more portraits. After my first portrait session I knew that photographing people was my future, and I just fell in love with the whole experience. I was lucky enough to be able to photograph portraits, weddings, school proms and other events this year and it’s been a wonderful experience.

Over the coming months there are a few weddings and other events planned and booked in, but importantly I’ll be advertising much more in the coming months and looking to take this branch of my photography much further. It helps that I’m working with a couple of others with this, as we all have our strengths we can bring to the venture.

Photography Adventures Wales Meets
An important part of my photography has been my meets that I organise with for fellow photographers. This year I managed to slow things down as I concentrate on other things, and we now meet fortnightly (and sometimes every third week). It’s kept things fresh, and the group has grown more with photographers looking to do photography and learn and grow with others.

Looking into next year, I’m not sure what is happening yet. As I mentioned in the recent past, I’m doing things more for me now after being let down by so many people (here and other ventures), so over the coming weeks I’ll see how it goes. It could be a total reboot, but who knows, it’s the least of my worries these days.

Health And Wellbeing
As many of you know, during 2023 I wasn’t too well and it affected my attitude towards photography (in hindsight for the better), and during 2024 I’ve been enjoying photography more and more. That’s not too say all has been well though, suffering with a really bad back has not helped, and also having anxiety still puts doubts in my mind with certain things. Mostly having confidence, or not having enough confidence can still be an issue (although when actually working with photography, it doesn’t affect me as much).

Generally though, like many I’m just plodding along in life. I know I don’t update this site as much as I should, but the latter part of this year I had a Labrador puppy who’s been taking up a lot of my time! Sawyer, along with my two boys are keeping me way more busier than I have been for a long time!

I look forward to sharing the results with everyone, although I’m currently putting together the project, and maybe I’ll even be able to get in one more shoot before 2025!

The Future
And so, as we look forward to 2025, and the first thing I can tell you is that I’ll be getting a Nikon ZF on or before my birthday in February. A second camera will make weddings so much easier, and the Nikon ZF is such an amazing camera, especially when combined with the Z40mm F/2 lens.

As mentioned I’m not too sure about in person group meets, I’m sure they’ll be still going in one form or another, but whatever will be will be with these.

After this years project, I really should think of another project. Stay tuned to hear about this!

The most important thing from me will be pursuing the weddings/portraits and events to try and make more money from photography once again (I currently tutor photography, but I’m not always busy doing this). I’m sure I can make photography work in 2025, as I have the foundation there.

Until next time… Merry Christmas Everybody!