2025..a series of failures so far?!
Welcome to 2025 folks! January feels like its been going on for a year already. I have been suffering with the depression as is typical for this time of year. (Anyone else find it a struggle mentally at certain times of the year?). I also have not been having the best of luck in my last few trips out with the camera either, which is the topic of todays blog.
First of all was a trip down to the south coast and a place called Kimmeridge Bay. Now this wasnt a true failure as I did come away with a couple of images that were okay but we went to the wrong location. There was potential for a dramatic sunrise and I had suggested heading to Swanage which had a better facing towards the eastern sky, but we decided to stick to Kimmeridge which turned out to be a mistake as geographically the bay blocks the view of the sunrise at this time of year. We had a touch of colour in the sky but after seeing an image posted on Social media later in the day by Jack Lodge I realised we had gone to the wrong spot. Still, I did manage to get one from here I really liked which is below so not a complete failure!
As you can see the gap on the horizon was there but mostly blocked by the headland.
The next trip out was on a surprise day off during the week. Thick fog had been forecast all day and me and my mate Dave decided to head over to Savernake forest to take advantage of the conditions. Now to be fair I have done really well at this incredible forest the last year and had managed to get some of my best woodland images from the more well known spots. So on this trip I decided to explore a different section of the woods in search of some new compositions. This turned out to be a mistake! The section I explored was pretty poor, with very few characterful trees nor even decent scenes. But to make things worse the all day thick fog literally vanished in less than an hour and that was that! I continued to wander around aimlessly for a while but eventually trudged back to the car, wondering when or even if the fog would drop back in. I met up with Dave (we were in different cars) and he led me over to another spot that looked like it had more promise but was alas also devoid of fog. Once again I did come away with a couple of images the one below being the best but again nothing spectacular.
A good analogy of how 2025 is working out so far!
The following week was looking dreary but Dave and I, ever the hopeful optimists decided to do a bit of coastal exploration. Dave had heard of a place called Kilve beach which had some interesting rock formations that could potentially make leading lines for a sunrise image. Upon arrival though we were greeted by flat skies, flat seas and a half out tide. The rocks were indeed interesting, but also incredibly slippery as I found out when I decided to try my hand at a backwards somersault on them. I landed hard and awkwardly, hurting my hand, elbow and right knee but also my pride. I lay on the rocks for a while, staring up at that flat white sky, wondering if the knee was broken and when I had reached that stage of my life where falling over was a high risk venture for me now! Dave, bless him came hurrying back over to see if I was okay and helped me back to my feet. He didnt laugh once which must have taken some iron will on his part! We decided the beach wasnt going to work out so I limped back to the car where after a brief discussion to see if I was willing to carry on, we decided to head over to Weston Super Mare to photograph the old pier at Birnbeck.
Even this wasnt much fun as the sky and seas persisted on being like my coffee….flat and white. The marine pool was emptied and being dredged so no images were to be had from there either and when we decided to grab a consolation Burger King on the way home we got lost in the town centre! Overall it was a pretty bad day apart from the company!
An attempt at high key long exposure was the best I could come up with.
Perhaps things would change on my next trip? High winds had been forecast and I decided to head over to my old favourite Porthcawl to catch some big wave action on the Friday. My back had been playing up all week after aggravating a muscle tear during my acrobatics last weekend so I was struggling in the car on the 2 and half hour drive over. But upon arrival, seeing the waves crash over the wall of the harbour I knew I would be getting some good action shots. It was only a thousand shots later that I realised I was shooting in Jpg and the white balance had been set for flourescant lighting, the reason being I was doing some product photography for work the day before and needed to transfer the images to my phone via Wifi to send to marketing and had neglected to change the settings back!! What a bloody idiot! I switched over to Raw after overcoming the urge to throw my camera or myself into the sea and managed to get a few images right at the end of the session. The other 1.1k were uncerimoniously dumped in the Macs bin when I got home..
One of about four images I kept from nearly 1200 taken.
In conclusion its felt like a really bad month for me photographically. I have had four trips out with nothing of real note to show for it apart from a badly bruised knee and a continuing back pain plus a few mediocre images to share. But is this really all about the negatives? Of course not! I had three good social meet ups with my mate Dave, got to see some truly stunning wave action at Porthcawl, paid a visit to a favourite spot of mine on the south coast, Kimmeridge. Learned I can no longer prance about over rocks like I did as a kid so will avoid that in future! I had crossed off a bad spot at Savernake so wouldnt waste my time there in future. And I also think that failure days like these make the good days that much sweeter. As photographers we love to chat about those days, how the light was spectacular, the clouds were stunningly lit, the trees were shrouded in mysterious mist and fog. But for every one of those days we get three or four that had nothing like the conditions we crave. January is always going to be a tough month to photograph here in the UK. The woods are devoid of leaves as the trees slumber in the cold months. Fog and mist are rare although this year the opposite has been true! We rarely get snow and the conditions for hoarfrosts are very few and far between here in the south. Also, I had a pretty epic end to last year with three visits to three beautiful woodlands on three very foggy days. You see, you just have to balance it all out in your mind. Yes January sucked but I did learn things and it was always going to be a hard act to follow that incredible December. My depression doesn’t help either as I tend to focus on the negatives more than the positives. I dont have the boundless enthusiasm for my art as some others like the aforementioned Jack Lodge who is one of the most positively minded humans I have ever met. I must always be conciously making myself aware of my negative thinking and dealing with it in my own way, which is fine as I have been doing it all my life and most of the time I have full control.
Four wasted trips? Of course no. Lessons learned, new skills attained and more appreciation of the times when it comes together!
But seriously, January, please go away now!