2024: one for every month
There’s been a fair amount of water passed under the bridge since I last did an annual review, but January has come around again that gives an opportunity to look back at the year just past and, as with previous years, pick one from every month. These aren’t necessarily the best twelve images of 2024, but they are ones I enjoyed making over the course of the year…
March - La Lonja de la Seda de Valencia
There was very little doubt about the location that I enjoyed most this year. The Valencia trip in March was fantastic - I wrote it up here - and I could probably have found a dozen from that trip alone to fill this page. However, I can have only one from March, so my pick is the image from La Lonja de la Seda de Valencia above. It is an image that has grown on me and I particular like the sense of calm and tranquillity, together with the warm tone in the image.
The other main highlight of the year was our October trip to New England - there’s more detail on the trip here. The trip was less photography focussed, but the combination of the fall colours and the lighthouses (always a winner) meant that there were a few good locations. I particularly liked this mono of the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse, with the fog enhancing the moodiness of the scene.
The final image is another lighthouse, but one that is much closer to home. At the start of the year we moved to Berwick-upon-Tweed and the pier and harbour light are regular stops on our walks around the town. It’s fair to say that I have a collection of shots of the light; this one taken during some fairly choppy weather in November is probably the pick of the bunch.
As for the rest of the year, the selection below hopefully gives a flavour of what has been an interesting and varied year of photography.
Reflections
Going through the images from 2024 I was pleasantly surprised that there were a fair few candidates for this post. Photographically it has felt like a bit of an uphill slog at times and, particularly in the first half, I felt that I wasn’t enjoying being out with the camera as much as I’d have liked. I’ll try to avoid making this an overly verbose, naval gazing exercise, but in brief I think there are three reasons that I’ve struggled at times:
Expectations. Rationally I know that it takes time to build a body of work, but the less rational part of my brain may have been disappointed that, following our move to the east, a series of portfolio worthy shots didn’t come spilling out of the camera in the first couple of months. As the year has progressed I think I’ve managed to start managing my expectations a little better.
Saturation. The coastline from south of Berwick down to Amble is a designated area of outstanding natural beauty. While it’s nowhere near as popular a tourist destination as, say, the Lake District it’s hardly undiscovered. There is no shortage of fantastic landscapes of places such as Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh and at times it’s hard to think that another image would add very much. (There’s also a glut of awful, over-processed, over-saturated rubbish, but that’s another story).
Aesthetic. The final thought, and the one that I’ve pondered the most, is that there has definitely been a shift in the images I enjoy towards a more documentary style (perhaps in part a reaction to the previous point). I think, perhaps, that the images I was trying to create earlier in the year were out of kilter with the images I admire. This is something I’ll aim to explore as we enter 2025.
On a positive note though, I think I’ve ended the year with a clearer view of the photography I enjoy. I’m much happier with the photography I’ve been doing more recently and I’m looking into 2025 with renewed enthusiasm. The acid test will come next January…
