Log of a Photo a Day Project
These descriptions accompany the photos shown during my Photo a Day project.
Scroll down to the Blog below which explains this project.
JANUARY 2025
1st Jan: On a gentle stroll - I immediately remembered strolling along this beach – 5 cousins on a trip to Ucelet on Vancouver Island, waiting in vain for the sun to shine.
2nd Jan: Sun at last - It’s easy to recall several days of winter gloom, and the joy of seeing the sun again, as we did on this bitterly cold day.
3rd Jan: Late in the day - Late in the day with limited vision, and here it was a cold gloomy day after Sunday lunch in a pub.
4th Jan: Winter sunset - Christmas Day 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. What a beautiful sunset looking towards my village.
5th Jan: Walk along the quay – A lovely walk along the quay in King's Lynn (North Norfolk), at the beginning of a week's stay with my family in a converted barn in Brancaster.
6th Jan: Sunrise - I’m rarely out in time to see the sunrise, but waking early, I saw this beautiful view from my bedroom window whilst staying in Balconsborough.
7th Jan: St Michael’s Mount - A different time of year, but the same place as in Kath’s painting for the day. Holidaying with family in Cornwall.
8th Jan: Early morning fishing - Early morning, and a single fishing boat in the bay. Such a beautiful light, before the heat of the day.
9th Jan: There is always hope - New Year’s Day 2024, looking at these birch trees stretching their branches towards the sky, expressing hope for a new year.
10th Jan: Sun struggling to shine - Getting towards the end of the day and the clouds gathered. On a fabulous trip to Iceland with my son.
11th Jan: Roof tops - There’s something wonderful about roof tops, and the views from Dubrovnik’s walls are stunning. Went out early, alive to the beauty of this amazing city.
12th Jan: Raining again - I have plenty of memories of walking along cliff-tops or as here on the promenade, on persistently rainy days. Last year it hardly seemed to stop raining.
13th Jan: A favourite place - Not much to go on from today’s painting, so I’ve simply picked the phrase about favourite places. But then I had to decide which one! I chose Lindisfarne, one of the most peaceful places I know – despite all the tourists.
14th Jan: Late in the day - A photo not too dissimilar to the day's painting in terms of light and location.
15th Jan: Yet more rain - This year has been unusually cold, but last January was exceptionally wet. These were the floods in my village a year ago.
16th Jan: Gentle pink clouds - on the Greek island of Tinos, with the pink reflected in the water of the bay.
17th Jan: Anchored - I love taking photos of boats, especially if they are reflected in the water of the harbour. The only difficulty with this theme was narrowing down which photo to use.
18th Jan: In search of snow - Staying close to home, I took my camera out on this bitterly cold February day. I liked the mottled effect of the snow on the ploughed field, complementing the mottled sky and stark winter trees.
19th Jan: Beautiful sky over Drangshio - Different place, different time, different theme, but this still meets Kath’s description of a beautiful sky nonetheless. A very exciting night for me: the first time I’d seen the aurora.
20th Jan: Still, quiet and peaceful - To quote Kath's words, 'The light this morning was so beautiful. Everything was still and quiet and perfectly peaceful.
21st Jan: Stunning views - in all directions in the neighbouring county of Cornwall.
22nd Jan: Fire burning in the sky - Evening in Sabi Sands (South Africa) and the sky was ablaze with colour.
23rd Jan: Winter reflections - Whilst Kath was reflecting on her weekend, I thought of a different kind of reflection, as in these trees at a National Trust property outside Cambridge. Reflections are one of my favourite subjects to photograph, with over a thousand in my catalogue.
24th Jan: Frozen ground - near my home, less than two weeks ago, but already this morning in the Botanical gardens spring flowers were blooming.
25th Jan: Nothing but sleet - Kath's photo for the day was of nothing but the blue slide in a neighbouring garden. I went for the same theme of the sleet masking the view from my window one morning.
26th Jan: Here comes the light - I looked through my dawn photos for this one, of the morning light dispelling the shadows across Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont.
27th Jan: Being still - on the Audley End Estate, near Saffron Walden, where the snowdrops are coming out. So heartening to see these first flowers of the new year. Photo taken exactly 4 years ago.
28th Jan: Bedruthan Steps - I took my cue today from Kath's location. It was a magical place on that morning as the huge rocks emerged from the fog into bright sunshine.
29th Jan: Airport display - I have very few photos of airports in my collection, and none of airport lights across the fields, so I have chosen an extravagant floral display at Changhi International Airport instead.
30th Jan: Spring in the air - Kath asks whether you can smell spring before it arrives. I could certainly feel it in the winter garden at the Botanic Gardens on Friday.
31st Jan: Trees reflected - Today I picked up on the water, trees, reflections and colour in the painting. My photo, taken in Cambridge's Botanic Gardens, is one of my favourite places.
FEBRUARY 2025
1st Feb: The rooftops of Marseille - taken from the hill on which stands the church of Notre-Dame de la Garde, Marseille's best-known symbol.
2nd Feb: Marseille quay - a contrast to Exeter quay.
3rd Feb: Vicar's Close, Wells - the same location as today's painting, showing what is thought to be the only complete medieval street left in England.
4th Feb: Pulteney Bridge, Bath - an important example of Georgian architecture and one of only four bridges in the world to have shops across its full span on both sides.
5th Feb: Light breaking forth - The colours of the winter garden at Anglesey Abbey were stunning early one morning after a dusting of snow. Almost no-one else was around.
6th Feb: At Sidmouth - on the east Devon coast, the pink of the coat and boots contrasts with the more muted colours of the sea and wave-cut platform.
7th Feb: A misty start to the day - A punt emerges from the mist on the River Cam in Cambridge.
8th Feb: Beautiful dawn - Wonderful colours as dawn broke over the distant island of Santorini, and a perfectly round sun hung over the horizon.
9th Feb: Evening, Ucluelet - Stayed near here with 4 of my cousins - such a beautiful peaceful setting.
10th Feb: Last week in Marseille - not much to go on in today's painting so I went to my most recent photo-shoot. Le quartier du Panier is a fascinating part of Marseille to wander around with a camera.
11th Feb: Surfers - an idyllic scene on a beach in Antigua.
12th Feb: Sandy bay - This beach is near Finiki, in the Peloponnese (Greece). I sought here to use the same elements as portrayed in today's painting.
13th Feb: Sunny views - from the causeway between Lindisfarne and the mainland, as the tide started to come in.
14th Feb: On the moor - probably this is the same moor - Dartmoor - as in the painting. These huge granite outcrops are known as tors, and are characteristic of several of Britain's upland areas.
15th Feb: Goat Walk, Topsham - same location as today's painting, and always a lovely walk along the estuary.
16th Feb: Signs of spring - Although it's still really cold, and the sun seems to shine only occasionally, bulbs are pushing through, and daffodils were out in Cambridge's Botanic Gardens last week.
17th Feb: Southwold - another coast. I don't have any coastal views of Dorset, apart from the Lyme Regis one I've already used in this project. So I'm on the eastern side of the country for this photo, in the popular village of Southwold.
18th Feb: Cold day at Dawlish - further down the Devon coast, to the west of Branscombe, where today's picture located, this was a cold day with very high waves as the tide came in. The view in the photo shows a relatively sheltered bay south of the town.
19th Feb: How today feels (Anglesey Abbey) - I'm in a reflective mood today and it's still cold, which this photo conveys through its bare trees and grey skies.
20th Feb: Evening in Venice - Today's painting is of a view across Exeter at night, whereas mine is a photo of a streaky sky at sunset looking across the Lido in Venice.
21st Feb: Rocky Bay, Kynance Cove - This was taken further down the coast, on the south coast of Cornwall, where the scenery is stunning as the sea swirls around the rocky cliffs and outcrops.
22nd Feb: Evening cityscape - dusk across the Thames towards the glass skyscrapers of Canary Wharf, London.
23rd Feb: Estuary - a different estuary, not in Devon but in North Norfolk, at Thornham, where channels of water move in and out with the twice-daily tides.
24th Feb: Catkins - These signs of spring are beginning to appear on the hazel trees. I noticed these the other day at Wandlebury (near Cambridge).
25th Feb: Still winter - Not too much to go on in today's painting and so I thought I'd pick this stormy shot taken on a lane on the edge of Dartmoor.
26th Fen: Bamburgh Castle - I've posted this because I think the colours in today's painting evoke the feeling of lightness and calm I feel when I look at this photo.
27th Feb: A cold start to the day - A bright day ahead, but temperatures remain low enough for some frosts in the morning.
28th Feb: These puffs and layers of cloud, lying along the sides of Tracy Arm, an Alaskan fjord, contrasted with the rich greens of the conifers. Below were the icy cold glacial waters from a glacier further upstream.
MARCH 2025
1st Mar: It's St David's Day today, and actually the spring sunshine has arrived, though temperatures are still low. Spring flowers are gradually rising from the cold earth.
2nd Mar: A beautiful day! These boats are in a small dock near the Dart estuary, waiting for winter to be truly over.
3rd Mar: This was taken 15 years ago, in Amboseli (Kenya) - such a beautiful place, and hundreds of elephants!
A Photo a Day
I had been thinking about a photographic project for some time, hampered mainly by my growing inability to carry too much equipment around. A tripod was out of the question, and I have increasingly found it difficult to carry my Fuji camera for very long, even with a lighter lens attached.
Enter Kath Hadden!
Retrospectively, I can see that there have been three moments pre-figuring my Photo a Day project.
First my daughter pointed out some examples of Kath Hadden’s work and, like her, I was excited by the colours, style and beauty of her paintings.
My second, closer encounter with Kath’s work was during a visit to Exeter which coincided with her Painting a Day exhibition last year. We spent the whole afternoon exploring the images and had a brief conversation with Kath, enabling a fleeting connection to the artist herself.
That Christmas I received a copy of Kath Hadden’s book, A Painting a Day: the Year in Pictures. With a painting on each page, all 365 photos, accompanied by a short narrative, were beautifully reproduced. [See https://www.kathhadden.co.uk/]
A 365 project?
At times I'd been tempted to re-do a 365 project. I had completed two whole years of taking and posting online daily photos in 2013 and 2014, and, as Kath mentions early in her own journey, I became ‘more alert to the beauty around me’. I learnt a huge amount through both taking photos and interacting online, but realistically I knew I couldn’t now go out every day with my camera. Nevertheless, though I take fewer photos nowadays, I have on my computer a large collection taken over the last decade or so.
It was as I studied the first photo in the book that my idea crystallised, because I found myself recalling a set of photos I’d taken on Vancouver Island, during a stay with my Canadian cousins. Could a 365 project be focused through shadowing Kath’s paintings? In my mind wasn’t the intention of using Photoshop to manipulate my photos in an attempt to imitate the paintings; rather, I wondered if I could use them as prompts.
An attempt at formulation
I thought I would experiment to see what worked, and 11 days in I have formulated some guidelines for myself.
- My subject is taken both from the painting itself and from the narrative Kath has written to accompany each of her pictures: this becomes the title of my photo for that day.
- The photos don’t resemble Kath’s paintings, but I try to ensure there are similarities. Though not always possible, I try to keep the season and the time of day similar. I haven’t, for example, used a photo with trees obviously in full leaf during January.
- Sometimes I find I can use a photo from a similar location to that day’s painting, or one using the same elements of landscape.
- Although my photos are stored mainly in a 2 x 3 format one rule is to imitate Kath’s 1 x 1 format for every photo. This puts boundaries on my choice because I find that a 1 x 1 crop in portrait aspect doesn’t usually work. Fortunately, most of my photos are in landscape, but even then, cropping into a square can easily destroy the composition.
At some point each day I study the relevant painting and then, often, one of my own photos or a series of photos, comes to mind. As the subject becomes clear, I search using keywords in Adobe Lightroom. Each photo which seems to fit goes into a ‘quick collection’, where I experiment with cropping. Sometimes I further process the photo before going back to the painting. If I’m not happy at this stage I start again!
Lastly, I decided to post each photo on this website, thus re-engaging with an earlier project which I had allowed to lapse.
Travel
I have deliberately entitled this piece 'Travel' rather than Travel Photography, as I wouldn't presume to describe myself as a travel photographer. The serious travel photographer, as I understand it, researches her or his destination carefully, plans visits to the particular aspects of a place she wishes to photograph, waits patiently for the right weather, avoids shooting in the bright glare of the midday sun and instead makes the most of the golden hours at each end of the day. I love to travel to new places and get really excited about the various photographic opportunities as I imagine them, but I almost always travel with other people and however patient and accommodating they are, I have to strike a balance between getting the right shot and being sensitive to the needs and wishes of my travelling companions.
Sometimes the most convenient way to explore a new place is through an organised tour, which limits opportunities still further: you are taken to a particular place at a particular time, regardless of the light and the weather. Sometimes you are in a moving vehicle, which presents its own challenges, not least of which are dirty train or coach windows.
There are occasions on all these trips when I take myself and my camera off and enjoy taking shots from different angles, composing each photo carefully, considering light and aspect, but mostly, for the reasons outlined, I have to take what I can get. Sometimes I have found myself in the right place at the right time - for example alongside the moat at Angkor Wat as the daylight began to fade:
or on a night safari in the Kruger National Park where we encountered lions at the waterhole:
Even shooting through the window of a moving coach need not debar one from getting a shot to be pleased with. This photo was taken in Norway in June this year, when we set out very early from Narvik to travel southwards towards Trondheim. As the coach wound its way through mountains and round fjords we were treated to indescribably beautiful scenes at every turn. I set my camera to a fast shutter speed, held the lens as close to the window as possible, and clicked away. It felt frustrating not being able to stop, not being able to compose each shot. Yet here is what turned out to be probably the best image of the holiday:
Generally, on each of the trips I have taken I have ended up with a set of photos, which, after processing, I am pleased with - and these are uploaded as part of my portfolio. Nevertheless, there are always occasions on which I make compromises and when I take photos even when I know the light is wrong, or conditions are very much less than optimal. On this particular morning, having left Siem Reap early, we disembarked the coach in extremely humid conditions. Immediately the lens on my camera steamed up - but I only had one opportunity to take photos of Angkor Thom, a place I'll probably never have the opportunity to re-visit - and so I took photos nevertheless:
Similarly, when we walked round Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, on the only opportunity to view the Falls, it was raining, so the photos I took there were extremely disappointing. Even so, they provide a visual memory of that trip, and thus were worth taking and keeping.
In Kenya, on a work trip in 2016, I was travelling to a remote area in the west of the country by car. The car was moving fast, and it was particularly frustrating not to be able to record something of what I was seeing. I tried to capture a few scenes, not particularly successfully. In this shot, for example, it would have been better if the bicycle had been in focus - but it wasn't a shot I wanted to delete, and so I tried to process it to make it a more interesting image.
Processing can often help if, when feeling rushed to get a shot (in this instance at Ta Prohm, in less than optimal light, and before another group of tourists stepped into the frame), what initially comes out of the camera looks pretty awful:
Here, adjusting the levels in Lightroom, lightening shadows, decreasing highlights and contrast, and adding a little clarity, made all the difference - and an image which, in the end, wasn't too bad.
Travelling in this way brings its own challenges and occasionally frustrations. I wouldn't claim that it fits into the genre of Travel Photography, but nor would I describe the images I end up with simply as holiday snaps. For the most part, I find the making of my travel photos - both the actual taking and the processing, extremely rewarding - and fun!
Missing my camera
The last few months have been tough, with major heart surgery undertaken at the beginning of November last year meaning that for the whole of that month and the first part of December my cameras stayed shut up in their cases. I first took my camera out again in mid December, with a trip to Bury St Edmunds. I took far fewer photos than usual on a day out, only keeping three images, one of is shown which below.
I love joy and colours displayed in this window in St Edmundsbury Cathedral, and have photographed it on several occasions. It's the Birt Memorial Window, described in an adjoining plaque as a celebration of women and music by Pippa Blackall and commemorating Geraldine Birt, a member of the St Edmundsbury Singers who died in 2005. The window depicts the prophetess Miriam from the Book of Exodus. For me at that point it also symbolised hope in a positive future after the dark days.
Apart from a few family photos taken over Christmas I didn't get my camera out again until mid January, with a visit to another local cathedral, Ely, where I enjoyed the play of sunlight through the stained glass windows onto the walls and pillars of the great nave. One of these photos is displayed on the Pattern Shape and Texture part of my portfolio (Colour I). The bright January sun also lit up the outside of that great cathedral:
Later, as the shadows lengthened, the cathedral's image was beautifully reflected in a partially frozen puddle in the field on the south side:
I only took my DSLR (with its macro lens) out again for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Once more I took only a few photos, and was disappointed with most of the results - but this one wasn't too bad and at least I can see spring is on the way:
I've spent time these last few weeks sorting photos and reorganising my website, as well as thinking about where my photography is going. I've missed taking my camera out for days at a time and losing myself in photography, which I've so much enjoyed doing in the past. My health has been slow to improve and I've had a second operation recently. Now I long for the energy to get back to where I was, to immerse myself in what had become a passion and such an important part of my life. It's taken a back seat for a while - but I'm thinking a lot about how much I miss making photos so perhaps that's the first step on a new creative journey.
Towards a personal photographic style
Four years ago I took up photography seriously, buying my first DSLR, shooting every day and posting online each day at 365project.org. I experimented across a range of genres, from sport to portraits:
from still life to street:
from food to abstracts:
to experimental techniques such as panning:
and even a wedding:
As I look back over four years of photos, however, I see that besides family photos, most of my shots are of landscapes, with photos of the natural world coming a close (allied) second, followed by large sets of photos taken while travelling to Spain, Vietnam and Cambodia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa, and Canada and the USA.
At the end of the year my website largely reflected the eclectic approach of the last four years. Many of the photos I had chosen to display were of landscapes, often coastal landscapes, and what I considered were 'good' photos - thoughtfully composed, correctly exposed and carefully processed. But as I read more about photography and reflect on which direction I might take at the beginning of 2017, I begin to think more about my personal style of photography, and what really energises and excites me. My photography is a way of seeking space for me, but if I choose to display my photos publicly, then it must also be a way of reflecting 'me', and communicating 'me' in some way.
Online articles on developing a personal style suggest close analysis on one's photos, and here, within many of the different types of photos I have taken, I discern a fascination with pattern, shape and texture. I look for these both within natural environments and through the religious architecture I am drawn to. Many of my photos focus in on the smaller aspects of larger spaces to draw attention to the patterns within. As the new year begins I have therefore reorganised my website to highlight shape, pattern and texture. I want to build on these aspects, though retaining for the moment selections of travel photos.