Hey!

Guess what? I am still here, and you are too, so cheers to that!

Summer has been and gone since my last post, and what a poor excuse for a summer that was. I am not sure about you, but I haven’t ventured abroad yet. I have started to feel the pull of foreign shores and guaranteed sunshine, so I have set my sights on jetting off somewhere next Spring, unless a meteor strikes the earth or something first!

I completed the ultra-marathon that I wrote about before. This graced me in glory for a few weeks, but how quickly these things pass. I wonder how I ever found the time for all that training.

The timeline of project 4 x 4 x 4 has now been under the cloud of a pandemic for longer than it has been without it. Realising that freaked me out somewhat, so I did a little calculation, and was reassured that at least the majority of pictures I have taken remains outside of Pandemic times. I wonder if the balance will be turned before we put this bug to bed?

During the first six months of ‘Covid’ I was compelled to shoot, shoot shoot, but as the malaise of our current situation took hold I was less inspired, and have lots of images that have never seen the light of day, until now! Creative people have spurned many a project from this period, and there are already books, exhibitions and TV programmes prepared for our consumption. I am not convinced that we have enough distance to appreciate the creative portrayal of what is still a very felt experience, but here are some images that I have taken at different stages since March 2020.

During the first lockdown I would visit various parks and playgrounds as part of my daily permitted exercise…

Photographing the empty playgrounds was quite enjoyable, as the weather was nice, and it was an excuse to go out on my bike and feel a connection with the world outside of my flat.

Throughout this period I was still feeling like this would all be over before too long.

Remember when we wrapped benches like they were contamination zones

**The night that pubs re-opened: 4th July 2020.**
This is what I wrote on an instagram post at the time: *Visited The Finsbury at Manor House and they seemed to have things well organised and under control:*
*Taking details for track & trace, distancing measures, plastic screening around the whole bar, sanitiser etc etc… I won’t make a habit of pub crawls just yet, but that felt fine ;-)*

4.43pm, Sunday 21st June 2020. The first time I had been on the underground for 95 days!

I visited Hayward’s Heath for project *4 x 4 x 4*, and was drawn to the window of a music shop Rockability. From memory, there was an eclectic mix of oddments on display, and I could see a guy set-back inside, busying himself building a model boat. I opened the door, and introduced myself. Clive and I then embarked on a lengthy conversation spanning topics that included the history of Hayward’s Heath, bands & the live music scene, and the importance of creativity. We also talked about the pandemic. This was in October 2020 and the sign on the door conveyed Clive’s sentiments about mask-wearing.

Only now am I visiting the set of images below, which I photographed on 28th August 2020. I wanted to venture out on the underground and see how things looked and felt. This was still a very quiet time, with a lot of apprehension. Did you venture anywhere, were you worried about going underground?

This image was taken at London Bridge Station, and there were strict guidelines concerning the flow of human traffic. I found myself at the same station last week, and there were people everywhere! I would say people are still quite mindful of others, but science says: you can only fit the capacity of a void to it’s limit, so you can only avoid close proximity to it’s contents for so long. I am science!

I managed to get reprimanded for taking this picture in the station, but blagged my way out of further questioning as usual!

Here we are, 18 months down the line, still wrangling with talks of lockdowns, and booster jabs, and with the underlying sense that something still isn’t quite right. Mad really! But, amidst the madness, life goes on…

Just recently I have experienced a noticeable shift in commissions, with a few jobs in October and a few more booked for November: a mixture of events, portraits, and photography tuition. It was nice to get out the Digital SLR and remind myself how long it takes to edit a job-job! Project shoots tend to be slower, and approached one image at a time. I am still working full-time at the picture framer, so doing it all is not sustainable long-term, and I look forward to having more choice on the work I do moving forward.