Giving directions – along the sea front near the pier in Cromer, Norfolk, UK
Giving Directions
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Category Archives: east coast
Seagulls riding the Updraft
Seagulls riding the Updraft – Sheringham, Norfolk, UK
Retrospective Book
I’m about to start on another photography book release via blurb.com that should take me most of the winter to put together. This is going to be a big project and an important landmark book (at least for me!) that completes the first phase of the Norfolk project.
Ten years ago, i decided that i needed a long term photographic project. What began as a loose kind of photography exercise in Norfolk, ended up gathering pace and direction. After ten years, it’s time for a break and some contemplation of where to take it next. I have lots of options open, plenty left to photograph in the county, and after a year or two i’ll return.
Over the next few months I’ll be putting all of the photography together, around 80 images or possibly more, to make a retrospective book that , I think, will be the perfect way to present the first ten years of work. The majority of the photographs that have been released online have focussed on the landscape side of the project, however, the book will stay true to the original idea with a broad mix of landscape and documentary photography. I aim to release the book on March 21st 2012.
SoFoBoMo 2011 Debrief
Phew! The hard work is over and the book is finished. Yep… Solo Photo Book Month is over for another year – well at least for me it is – and it’s time to reflect on the book, the photography and the project generally.
This year i found it tough to come up with book ideas. I did have an plan of shooting the book in Norfolk as the dates for the start of the SoFoBoMo project coincided with my visit, however i thought i’d be using a regular digital camera or even 6×6 film. In the end though, the answer came in the shape of the iPhone. Small and light, it is the perfect instrument for capturing images quietly and quickly. It’s perfect for street photography and from that thought came the book. Combined with the Hipstamatic photography app it managed to create images with a black & white ‘Holga’ like aesthetic that i liked a lot. The photographs in the book are displayed as shot – NO PhotoShop work was done at all. Nothing was added or tweaked. A loose limit of forty to fifty images to be in the finished book was always the aim and the final total came it at a magical forty seven. Perfect.
The one element i’ve always loved about the Solo Photo Book Month project is the degree of control you have over what you do. The rules are simple and you enforce them yourself. You could cheat but why would you want to? You also set the level of difficulty and i did briefly consider that using the iPhone again might be being slightly lazy but, hey it suited the job. Many of the photos were literally see and shoot moments. Sometimes there is just no time for technical considerations. The photograph of the people crab fishing was a classic example of that. Within seconds of the photo being taken they had moved. A full selection of photographs from the book project (including many photos not eligible for inclusion in the book due to them being taken before the project commence date of July 1st) can be found in the Sand, Sky, Sea and Street gallery HERE
So has it been a good SoFoBoMo year for me? I think it has. In fact i would regard this as the best of the three photo books i have created for the SoFoBoMo so far. So what about 2012? Ah, well i do have some plans that are about 75% complete for next year and it will be the most ambitious and challenging book I’ve attempted yet. All i will say for now is….5×4. Highlands. Landscape. 
Watch this space….
This year’s book can be downloaded and viewed at:-
Yacht’s Return
On the Edge
Cliff erosion at East Runton, Norfolk, UK
Twelve Months
Holme beach, Norfolk, UK
It’s hard to believe but the Darker Skies blog has been online for a year. My initial idea for the blog’s role turned out to be a non-starter. Originally i had planned the blog to be more like my main photo blog. I just didn’t see the point of doubling up on websites though. Each must have its own distinct role and Darker Skies certainly has developed an important role for itself over the last year.
Really the blog acts as a satellite for my other online photographic endeavours and as my own photo blog. The podcast has its own page here and there are plans to expand the site even further. The page design changed again earlier this month and… finally i’m happy with the way the blog looks. It’s been quiet here so far this month, very little in the way of photo postings, but i ‘ll be adding an image everyday this week starting tomorrow.
Here’s to another year of Darker Skies.
Gone Fishing
Fishing for crabs at Whitby, North Yorkshire, UK
End of the pier
Next Year…
Looking back towards Blakeney – Norfolk, UK
I’ve already started to formulate some plans for next year. After all, a year seems like a long time, but it soon goes, so I’m just thinking about where to take things next year. 2011, I think, will be a year in which I want to push my multimedia ideas to the next level - video, audio and photography. Heck yeah, that sounds like fun and a challenge too. I’ve started experimenting around with video recently, shooting and editing material I’ve done via my iPhone, however I really want to move to a much higher standard of work by this time next year. I think that the return to shooting in Norfolk next year will be a great place for developing a large-scale piece of multimedia work.
A couple of items needed to help me along. First is a compact digital HD camcorder, and second is software to produce professional photography slide shows with audio…. with the addition of video too. The camcorder will also be used for video podcasting, something I want to commence doing later this year. My only worry is the potential pitfalls of shooting video and still images at the same time. It rarely works well – both need different mindsets. I always remember a Larry Burrows (one of my photo heroes) remark that he would shoot black & white OR colour…. but NEVER both at the same time.
Ways of looking, ways of seeing and the visual interpretation of a scene – it depend to some degree on the medium you use and sometimes it’s just better to focus on one, than try to do several at the same time.
