It’s that time of the year between Christmas and New Year when the world seems to slow down, and you never know what day of the week it is. I’ve been going back over old photos in my library and pondering the past year. I actually got out to take photos quite a bit this year, but I have been really bad at sharing the projects that I was shooting. These include photographing a local stately garden throughout the seasons, visiting a national park at sunrise and sunset and a trip to Scotland to see lough ness. So, as they’ll never see the internet light of day otherwise, here’s a quick overview and some images I took over the past year.

I’ve been very busy this past week, and so once again I’ve been somewhat bad about posting on the blog. I have been buried in design work with a tight deadline and so unfortunately the tutorials and so on have had to take a back seat. I have so much photography stuff to share too, and it’s just been building up in my to-do list, so I hope you can forgive the short absence. Google’s algorithm, however, will not.

A few weeks ago I got to spend some time in Berlin, and so of course I took the opportunity to try and photograph the city whenever I had a chance. While I actually had a bunch of different cameras with me, I ended up taking quite a lot of photos on my iPhone. I will cover the other photos I got with both my Fujifilm and Canon cameras in a later post, but for now, I thought I would collect all the iPhone ones into a single story!

Much of the photography content online is created by photographers for other photographers, which works well for building communities but limits its broader appeal. If you want your work to reach a wider audience, it’s worth rethinking who your content is really for.

Back in April my wife and I took a road trip to the northern most region in Ireland, the Inishowen peninsula in Co. Donegal. We were there for a few days and took the opportunity to photograph the northern most point on the island of Ireland, as well as some of the incredible beaches in the area.

Earlier this year, I had a chance to visit two of the cities I’ve always wanted to see: Copenhagen and Stockholm. Ever since visiting Oslo a few years ago, I’ve really wanted to see the rest of the region and Copenhagen and Stockholm were on the bucket list. So, when I got the chance to see both of these cities, I jumped at the chance. This wasn’t going to be a strictly photographic trip - I was there with my wife on a business trip, but it was still an opportunity to get to visit these wonderful cities.

When it comes to photography, I have a lot of differing tastes. I don’t just mean photographic genres, bur rather images that appeal to me. I like good composition and storytelling as much as the next person, but I also have an affiliation for colour and texture. And sometimes, Nature provides us with an abundance of both of these.

Of all the things - photography related - that I’ve done over the years, I’ve had plenty of missed opportunities, and made plenty of mistakes. However, there’s only really one thing that I truly regret. And that’s selling my Canon 5D Mark II and 24-105mm lens. There isn’t a year that goes by that I don’t regret that decision.

Near to where I live is what is a rather remarkable place to find in a city. Called “Airfield”, it is a 38 acre site which features a 19th century estate, gardens and a fully working farm. Recently, on an overcast and rainy day, my wife and I paid a visit to the estate for a walk around the gardens, to get away from the outside world for a few hours and I ended up taking a ridiculous number of photos.

Like many people, while I’ve been lucky enough to travel abroad quite a bit, I haven’t actually spent much time exploring my own country of Ireland, and I’ve actually been to surprisingly little of the island. With Covid making international travel complicated and not something I particularly want to partake in right now, we recently decided to take a few days holiday in the southeast of Ireland. One of the most interesting places we visited was to the Hook peninsula to visit the famous Hook Lighthouse

I like coffee. A lot. It’s probably one of my biggest obsessions after photography. I have about 10 different methods of making coffee, including three different coffee machines. I like all different kinds of coffee, and I’ll make a different type depending on the time of day and my mood. At this point, you’re probably wondering what any of this has to do with photography, but bear with me. It’s a bit of a journey, but we’ll get there.

On one of my trips to New York, back in 2009, I was walking through Central Park on a beautiful sunny day, and wandered across a baseball game. I had never seen a baseball game in real life before and was chuffed to see this, it being such an icon of Americana, and this only being my second trip to the country.

Mylio has just received a pretty big new update. The latest version adds some significant new features and is available now. Also, the company recently changed its pricing levels.

Summer finally arrived in Ireland last week. It only lasted for a day or two, but we enjoyed it while it lasted! It’s actually been really cold so far through most of June, but we did have a few hot days, and so I headed out to see how people were enjoying the sunshine.

A few weeks ago I read a post on a fairly popular website from someone arguing that photography as an art from was being ruined because its become so accessible. The author was decrying the fact that anyone can take a photo now and anyone can call themselves a photographer. They believe that this has diluted the purity of the art (I’m paraphrasing) and are ruining it for the “real photographers”.

At the start of the new year, I like to outline some of my photography related goals and plans for the upcoming year. Some of these are aspirational, and some are more practical. Many won’t get accomplished, but its still a useful exercise to write things down. While some are more longer term goals, I also have a couple of more short term projects that I want to talk about too.

I’ve been taking a little break this week, and I got to spend some time in London. The city, like the rest of the UK and Ireland, is currently experiencing a heatwave, and as someone who doesn’t do well in the heat, I’ve found it quite oppressive and hard to function. Anyway, I haven’t really been taking many photos, but here are a random few from the few days in the city.

In this episode of “The Photo Geek Show” I take a look at behind the scenes of shooting one of my YouTube videos. I tried to shoot 3 videos at once, and things didn’t exactly go according to plan. I also look at how I edit and assemble the photos and video footage into a finished product!