The best of 2022
Looking back, reviewing and assessing your work is an important part of the learning process but with the previous two years seemingly passing at a snail’s pace, 2022 has swept past in something of a blur so writing my annual look back on the year was more of a re-discovery of shoots and images that I had already forgotten. I had the idea of choosing just one image per month but as will become apparent, I found it impossible to leave some out. It is so difficult to detach yourself from any emotional attachment to your own work… maybe next year I will ask somebody else to pick.
JANUARY
The end of 2021 was a hectic one, jam packed with workshops as I caught up with the backlog of lockdown postponements and re-commenced overseas trips with a 10 day private workshop in Iceland. So by comparison, 2022 started relatively quietly giving me some welcome time to photograph my local patch in Suffolk.
I spent the time around the rivers Deben, Orwell and Butley visiting a few perennial favourites as well as revisiting places like Waldringfield and Trimley that I hadn’t been to for some time. My January photo falls firmly into the former camp. Shingle Street is a place where I have spent a lot of time over the years, mainly because it is constantly and often drastically changing. Tidal action shifts and re-shapes remarkable volumes of the shingle shoreline, forming new ridges and lagoons and creating new angles to photograph.
I had been waiting for an opportunity to fly the drone here in the hope that an elevated view coupled with some low side light would best reveal Shingle Street’s shapes. This shot was taken on a calm, clear and bitterly cold morning just after sunrise with the beach bathed in the first light. There is always an element of luck in landscape photography and on this occasion, having neglected to check the tides, I chanced upon a tide high enough to fill more lagoons than I had realised were there.
FEBRUARY
One of the highlights of February was running two consecutive workshops on the Northumberland Coast. We happened to be up there as storms Dudley and Eunice passed through and it would be something of an understatement to say it was somewhat breezy! With the wind buffeting the camera photography was challenging at times, especially on the wide open beaches but when we could keep the camera (and ourselves) steady enough and we could see through watering eyes, the light was great!
At the end of this workshop, we usually make a stop an hour down the coast at St Mary’s Lighthouse which is conveniently on the way home. On this occasion we carried on down to Roker Pier in Sunderland which is where this image was taken. I was hoping to do very long exposures to smooth the sea but in the high wind it was a struggle to even keep it sharp at the 30 second exposure you see here. Thanks to the dramatic stormy skies though and a bit of light on the lighthouse, I was more than happy with this one.
MARCH
This month’s image was taken on one of my Art of Long Exposure workshops, one of those days where the weather seemed to change every twenty minutes or so culminating in these epic rain clouds. Ironically this wasn’t a long exposure, as much as I enjoy the effect that a slow shutter speed has on moving water or clouds, on this occasion the clouds were drifting passed at quite a rate and I didn’t want to blur those dramatic shapes and textures. Remembering to choose your technique to achieve the effect you want is one of the trickier aspects of photography especially as these decisions often need to made very quickly.
APRIL
I introduced a few new workshops in 2022, one of which was 3 days photographing Anglesey & the North Wales Coast and April was it’s debut. This coast is a wonderfully rugged combination of sandy beaches, rocks, cliffs, dunes and lighthouses but it is the ever present brooding mountains on the horizon that make it so special. This was taken at Llandwyn Island, a fabulous spot with endless opportunities for photography. To illustrate that point, this old lighthouse isn’t the most popular subject there but on this evening with soft light on the hills in the distance it was my favourite view.
While I was there I took the opportunity to carry on exploring the Snowdonia National Park in preparation for a workshop in the autumn but sadly while the weather at the coast was perfect, Snowdonia was under a big drizzly cloud for the duration!
MAY
Late spring is one of my favourite times of year. Everything is coming to life with fresh greens and bluebells in the woodlands, wildflowers appearing on the coast and verges and the sort of weather conditions I love, the ones that bring misty mornings, the sort of conditions I had for this photo in fact.
I was exploring a part of the River Stour near Sudbury that I hadn’t photographed before and got lucky. I had plenty of images to choose from for May (you can see several of them at the bottom of the page) but I picked this one because I like photographs that make you look twice and from this angle Sudbury’s meadows could almost be mistaken for a rainforest.
I also made another trip to Snowdonia during May, managing to recce and photograph some new locations without the need for an umbrella for once… it was a good month!
JUNE
One of my aims in 2022 was to try and improve my night photography. Finding the time and a clear night are the stumbling blocks usually. Actually that’s not entirely true, motivation is a problem as well - for some reason I can always get up for sunrise but find it hard to head out in the middle of the night. I didn’t make it easy for myself either as June’s image was inadvertently taken on the longest day (and thus shortest night) of the year, not the best time for photographing the night sky as it barely gets fully dark. In addition, I had been out for sunrise that morning so it felt every minute like the longest day!
The choice of date was one of convenience, I had a booking that evening to judge a competition at Norwich & District Photographic Society so while I was in the area I decided to head to the Norfolk coast to try and shoot the Milky Way over Happisburgh Lighthouse. Thankfully the sky stayed clear and I got my shot - a combination of several exposures and dark shots blended together to reduce noise. The night went surprisingly quickly and driving home I realised that it would be dawn soon and as there was mist rising I couldn’t resist one last shoot!
JULY
For most landscape photographers, the height of summer is probably their least favourite time of the year. I can totally understand why… very early sunrise times, harsh daytime light and most locations busy with holiday makers but I always think summer has its attractions. With the salt marshes covered in the bobbing lilac flowers of sea lavender, July is one of my favourite times of year to photograph the North Norfolk coast. The sun rises and sets over the sea in summer and if you can brave the early sunrises you will have the place to yourself. I have to admit that this shot was taken at the other end of the day at sunset on one of my Saltmarsh & Sea Lavender workshops, I don’t mind an early start but nobody wants to attend a workshop that starts at 4am!
On this occasion somebody had parked their Land Rover in prime position but sometimes you just have to go with the flow and accept these things… at least it was a classic and not a big white camper van. And at least this was one of the workshops I could run, days later I found myself in the unusual position of having to cancel a workshop because it was too hot!
AUGUST
This was the hardest month to narrow down to just one picture. Just hours after returning from a few days amongst the heather and boulder strewn hills of the Peak District I was on a plane to Windhoek for my first trip to Namibia.
Namibia’s delights will be familiar to most landscape photographers and they are even more impressive in the flesh. From a choice of sand dunes in excess of 300m, centuries old dead trees, deserted towns, ship wrecks and huge granite peaks, I picked this photo taken at the quiver tree forest in the middle of the first night of the trip. I’ve never seen a night sky like this before. The arc of the Milky Way spreading clearly across a sky covered with a mind boggling number of stars twinkling out of the darkness… amazing! As I said this was my first visit to Namibia but it won’t be my last, I’m already planning a ‘Big Adventure’ workshop there in 2024.
SEPTEMBER
September is one of my favourite months, aside from it being my birthday, its the time of year when things quieten down after summer, the weather starts to change and those atmospheric misty mornings make an appearance. It’s also a time when I usually go on a recce and this year I spent a week photographing the North & East Yorkshire coast in preparation for a workshop there in 2023 and what a fantastic place for it is for coastal photography!
On this morning, having photographed the sunrise and crashing waves at Thornwick Bay, I dashed over to North Landing just a few minutes away and photographed these fishing boats as the first light washed over the cliffs. I tried several different shutter speeds, experimenting with anything from half a second upwards before settling on the 30 second exposure you see here.
OCTOBER
This is the height of my workshop season and with one week in Northumberland, one week in Snowdonia & Anglesey, one week in the Peak District and a week of one day workshops here in East anglia, I did little else!
It was a month packed with photography but choosing an image was relatively easy because with brooding blue hour skies, pin sharp reflections in the lake and a hint of mist swirling over the water, this was the perfect morning at Llyn Padarn in Snowdonia.
NOVEMBER
Autumn was rather late arriving this year with autumn colour in the trees almost into December! Having upgraded my old Canon EF 100-400mm mkI with a shiny new RF 100-500mm, I headed over to Helmingham Hall to give it a try and was rewarded with fantastic conditions - mist, warm early morning light and plenty of deer.
I couldn’t believe my luck when I spotted this stag framed in these tree branches and was relieved that it stayed there long enough for me to frame and focus this shot.
DECEMBER
In December, I had the opportunity to photograph the Winter Lights at Anglesey Abbey for the National Trust, a challenge photographically but with lights, projections, poetry and sounds of nature, a wonderful sensory experience and my favourite commission of the year!
As we got closer to the end of the year we were treated to a cold snap bringing a thick hoar frost and a decent snow fall to much of East Anglia, something of a rarity in recent years. Unfortunately bad planning and other commitments meant that aside from some aerial shots of Framlingham Castle, I missed the best of it. It also meant it was absolutely freezing for my workshops on the Dorset coast which is where December’s photo was taken. The windchill was at least -5°C, and the soaking from drifting spray didn’t help but the waves crashing over the rocks were to die for. A slow shutter speed of around half a second was perfect for adding a touch of silky blur to the water.
It’s been a busy year but after a good rest over Christmas, I’m preparing for and looking forward to an even busier 2023… see you then! It was always going to be a challenge choosing just 12 images from the year so below are a few of those that didn’t quite make it…