January
January was full of bliss , no real work had to be done just yet and the weekends could be saved for doing fun things , just like this Ceilidh here which marked the occasion of our international tournament. The only real downside was the start of me as a humanities student having a 9am-6pm day on a monday....contact hours......who????
Rating 9/10
February
I got used to the Mondays in the end, the secret was to call a friend between my third and fourth lectures to go pick me up a sausage roll from the Greggs and deliver it to me on my way to my philosophy lecture (who needs deliveroo). More importantly however the world started looking a little brighter as the days progressively became longer. The photo above was taken on such a Monday at the top of a tower at the University that is now no longer named after a philosopher.
Rating 8/10
March
The third month of this year in many memes has become synonymous with the world ending, but all I can remember of it was the fact that I did a great karaoke at the start of the month and then nearing the end before I was rushed home a massive football match took place in the meadows. Truly the time i spent in my hometown allowed me to not only escape the stress of revision for exams but also change my camera gear three times over (retail therapy will become a theme). Settling down back in York I said to myself "We will be back for the Fringe".
Rating 10/10
April
Adjustments were needed for this month as emptiness set in to the outside and the inside world. The weather was also annoyingly nice, however I think that it is just normal to notice the negative things when there is nothing else going on around you. This image was taken with a 10mm lens meant for capturing wide landscapes and yet I cropped it to portrait. I would sell this lens a week after buying it realizing that there was no point me having it if all I did was crop things down. Something I would regret in the coming month.
Rating 6/10
May
The weird month where the world seemed to be coming back to normal at certain speed, I spent my days as I had done for the past two months delivering medication to the elderly in my village enabling me to go out for more than an hour a day and have a reason. Weekends could be spent exploring the great Yorkshire countryside and every now and then the coast, this particular image was taken on my dads birthday when he wanted to go eat fish and chips at Saltburn by Sea . Fun fact about this "resort" is that from the top of the cliffs you get a really nice view of Middlesbrough (yes such things exist). TO take this picture I had to keep walking backwards because I had stupidly sold the big wide boy and was working with a 50mm lens again. But i like the way it frames the whole scenery and shows a classic day at northern beach. Sunny but most definitely cold and dangerous.
Rating 7/10
June + July
Taken near Barnard Castle, no I didn't see him maybe this is why i had to get my eyes tested.
I grouped these two months together as they both involved the same amount of existential angst as the other. Mostly feeling absolutely useless as it became clear that a lot of the future plans of going abroad were going to be taken away from me for good. You kind of feel weird when you start realizing that your feelings of anger towards the situation are valid yet things could be worse. These worries came out in the selling of my whole DSLR Nikon system and a change to the Fujifilm mirrorless which I shoot with now, I needed something compact and that I could eventually travel with. I guess if I felt like I could manifest the idea that I would be able to travel soon then I would. I mean it turns out I was not wrong, at the end of the month I moved back up to Edinburgh finally conceding that the year in France was not going to happen at least for the first semester. I started to feel a little more in control with life, for now at least.
Rating 3/10
August
The reason I post two images for this month is because I spent it in two very different places and climates. The first ten or so days in Edinburgh, I was back for the Fringe but the Fringe was not there so i had not technically lied in March. There was a feeling of bliss and freedom as I continued on the project I had started and met a lot of new people through it. The great thing about those few weeks was that I felt that I was making a little bit of dent in history by documenting the world around me, I have always needed that kind of vindication for what I do. I admire those that can do art for arts sake and not care what others think, but I cannot separate what I produce from the audience. One week I spent visiting my grandparents in the south of France , something that at the time felt normal but now I look back on it I was incredibly fortunate to have been able to go. The picture was taken at the Spanish border hidden in the mountains, I felt quite rebellious crossing it because at the time you had to quarantine coming back to the UK if you had been to Spain. I would jokingly regret saying "They wouldn't just quarantine my left foot". I got home 2 hours before the UK government struck France from its air corridor list and my whole family back in York were forced to quarantine when they came back. I then learnt I stepped into my flat after i returned that we were all being evicted and I had to find somewhere else to live ASAP. With no chance of going home to York to a quarantined household the race to find a flat was extremely stressful, but proved fruitful finding a much cheaper place in no time after having paid for the premium subscription on spare room (smh capitalism).
Rating 5/10 (because of the stress)
September
The ninth month of the year involved re-learning how to learn, a lot of time was spent on hills around the city whether it be rain or shine. On the particular day this picture was taken It was incredibly grey and foggy and frankly it was poor idea to go to the top of a cliff in that weather but I was bored. You can just about make out the castle, its a really bad photo but I like it, it has character as my grandma would say- but then again she said the same thing about Maggie Thatcher so idk how to feel.
Rating 6/10
October
Scotland was getting a little less free by the week so to keep occupied more hills were climbed up in this month than all the other months combined. I say plural hills but in reality there is only one I went because it is superior and closer than all the others. This picture was taken from my "spot" overlooking the most perfect golden hour. Not much to say except that morale was kept high despite the world closing in around us. I ended up re-watching normal people twice over this time, not only because I think its beautifully shot and that I'm into quiet Irish murmuring but that the soundtrack slaps. Seriously go download it on Spotify.
Rating 9/10
November
This period coincided with some of the most challenging periods of the year, the deadlines starting to pile up and the year abroad being officially gone my creativity hit a block and I took one decent picture during that whole time for the project. Yes it is the one above and yes it is terrible but also think how I felt after I spent two hours with a tripod outside in the freeing cold trying to capture the fireworks and only one of the images not coming out blurry. Anyway we move and add grain to it and lots of colour filters and voila!!! I tried the same things with my assessments and got told to step up my game because it was honors years, haters everywhere I know right.
Rating 5/10 (For essays I couldn't write)
December
A kind of calm acceptance was overwhelming during this final month of a turbulent year. Going home for the first time sine the end of July to home cooked meals and trashy French afternoon TV has finally allowed me to reflect on how far my photography has come this year. We began with a lot of action photography as the world was moving rapidly around me and then when the world stopped I turned to more deliberate shooting of landscapes as that was all there was. I changed my camera to fit with the new times and also to prepare for what I hope will arrive in the future.
Documenting my experiences is something that I definitely want to explore in the future and really get into travel photography, that's why my next lens purchase will be the Fuji XF 16-80mm.
But for now ill stick with documenting the experiences of others around me telling their little stories by putting random folky songs to the pictures I take of them on my Instagram story.
Ill leave you with my favorite picture of the whole year, its not perfectly in focus but it tells the story of this year perfectly in my eyes.
Two meters apart
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