Entering January in a national lockdown isn’t promising for any photography to come, but we’ll just have to wait and see how it goes.

For the first part of January I hadn’t used my cameras at all, but then later on in the month I took it along on a few walks. I did start off with a remote shoot, but as that didn’t involve me getting my camera out, it kind of doesn’t count.

The Photography Social has decided to start doing some remote shoots and they needed some people to test it out. Originally I was busy on the evening they were doing it, but things changed and I was able to male it in the end. The model for the evening was Taylor, but it kind of reaffirmed why I haven’t done any remote shoots so far, due to a number of issues. I’m sure people can create some fantastic images from remote shoots, and I have seen many people do so, but they just aren’t for me. Something simple like moving the camera up or down, moving a light slightly to one side, or even talking to the model becomes a lot of hassle, when on a normal shoot it can be done in seconds. From this group they took feedback and had another test shoot which I couldn’t make, and have since held events for others which have produced some great shots, but I think I’ll be waiting until I can use a camera in my hands again before I start booking shoots again. However, it is something to keep in mind as an opportunity to work with people who don’t travel as much or are in a different country.

Next up, I decided to go out on a walk and through I’d take my camera along with me as the plan was to go into town and see how the place has changed over the last few months. I knew there would be very few people around due to the lockdown and it being really early on a Sunday morning, which gave me an opportunity to grab some photos without people. I didn’t walk too far, pretty much just to town and back, but it was quite a bit different to the last time I walked around there, and lots of places with building works taking place.

Then I’ll group the next couple of things together as I went on two more walks with my camera, both times to take photos of the snow. The first walk, I’d seen it starting to snow a bit and it was settling, so as we very rarely get a decent amount of snow around here, I went for a walk around the local area and took a camera to grab a few images of the snow before people had walked all through it. It was actually snowing quite hard when I was out walking, and managed to get a few images with all the snow coming down in front of me. As I was only out briefly, walking around the local neighbourhood, the images weren’t very picturesque, not normally the area I’d take photos of, but I needed some photos of the snow.

The snowfall had stopped, but overnight it had started up again and by the time it was early morning I’d looked out my window and there was quite a lot of snow around. I thought it’d be a good idea to take a longer walk, head into town and see what that looked like in the snow. Along the way I took a few photos around where I lived, and it really was quite a heavy snow, with a few cars struggling along the roads as I walked along. I got into town and while there was still quite a lot of snow in certain areas, the main roads and footpaths were mainly sludge and didn’t look that nice. With Abbey Park nearby, I thought I’d head there before going back home and I’m really glad I did as it looked beautiful in there. I walked around Abbey Park, then along the river towards Watermead Park, before deciding to head home. I really enjoy the snow when I don’t have anything planned so I can go out in it, as it was this time, and it really does look amazing if you go to the right place.

And that was all for January 2021. I don’t have anything planned for February as we’re still in lockdown, and unless I take my camera on some more walks, or find something to do at home, I can’t really see me doing much with my camera next month. We’ll see how it goes, but I may have to miss out next months blog post and hope we are allowed out to do more sometime soon.