Diary of a Landscape Photographer | Entry 7

Perhaps I’m too young in my photography journey to put myself into a box and call myself a ‘landscape photographer’. Truth is, I love all kinds of photography but I feel a constant obsession with my task at hand and I’m not sure where this comes from. At the moment, this task is to create the best landscape photographs possible and it has taken over my life. What if this attitude is actually a hindrance?

And by that I mean, what if I am putting too much pressure on myself to create ‘better’ photographs all the time? Rather than just enjoying the ones that I am able to create at the moment because they are 10x better than those that I was creating once upon a time.

Do you see my conundrum?

I often feel unfulfilled with the photographs that I make because I know that there is going to be another one just around the corner. It’s part of who I am and who I always have been. It’s even meant that I have refused to sell a piece of work because I knew that it wasn’t the finished piece. I think I might be programmed to never be completely happy with what I have.

There are so many ideas floating around in my head about the kind of photographs that I want to create, most of which take time, patience, a better understanding of light and a whole lot more maturity than that which I currently have. Three years behind a camera is not a long time in the grand scheme of things.

I know that there are so many other things that I could be doing in the mean time, while my vision develops and matures but I’m scared that these might detach me from where I think that I need to be.

I have so many questions and nobody that I know who can answer them.

Winter Woodland Photography in Mid Wales

A recent series of winter woodland photographs that I submitted to feature in the Welsh Country Magazine.

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Diary of a Landscape Photographer | Entry 2

I think I’d better get used to this. 10.23 and I’m still sat ‘working’ at the computer. Let’s be honest, it’s not work is it. I love it. How can I call this work when it’s something that I choose to do. When I’ve woken up every single day so far and leap out of bed, which I have always wished I could do. When it’s all a part of what I feel is my mission in life. It’s all tied upstairs in there somewhere. That part I’m still trying to work out and untangle out of this busy little head and onto some sheets of paper. But this week has been a very productive one in terms of writing my ‘why’. I’m literally writing a story as I go along. I’m now a storyteller. And a photographer. And a ‘fitness guy’. And a marketer. And at the moment, a bird. Flying high up in the sky.

Diary of a Landscape Photographer | Entry 1

3/1/2021 - The Sunday before my first Monday of ‘unemployment’.

It still hasn't sunk in yet.

I'M A PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER!!

Two and a half years ago I hadn't worked a camera. I was a van driver at City Electrical Factors. I'd spend my days listening to personal development podcasts while delivering plug sockets and conduit among other things to the sparkies around Mid Wales.

I'd also just embarked on a journey to become a personal trainer, thinking that taking gym selfies for a living and telling people to eat their complex carbs was where my future was.

One weekend, I received a phone call from my best mate asking me to take a spontaneous trip up to Pistyll Rhaeadr. I'd never been. 18 years in Mid Wales and I'd barely made it past Rodney's Pillar on my expeditions. For some unknown reason that day, I decided to nick my sisters DSLR (bleurghh... Nikon. I washed my hands twice afterwards). I stuck the thing in manual mode and the rest, I believe they say, is history.