Back to the Sea

It's been a while since I've had some time out with the camera.  The summer is often a quieter time of year for photography for me, with earlier sunrises and late sunsets meaning it's difficult to get out for the golden hours and the time in between often falling into harsh light.

Heading into autumn I had a few outings in mind to focus on photography.  Having had a bit of a quiet summer I wanted to get back into it I sometimes feel that photography is a bit like exercise, it can take a little while to build up to previous levels, to get my eye back in.

With that in mind it I was pleased that my first stop was the coast.  If I find that it's been a while since my last photography session I often like to head to the sea as it presents so many opportunities.  Weather, tides and light all combine to offer an ever changing range of options for subjects.

Although the weather wasn't fantastic, with grey skies and occasional rain I still managed to come back with some images I am pleased with.  As always, the coast delivered.

 

 

LPOTY and all that

For the past 4 years I've entered the Landscape Photographer of the Year competition (LPOTY).  Each year they announce a shortlist of entries in July before the overall winners are announced in October.

Whilst making it to the final phase has not been something I've managed I've been shortlisted on a couple of occasions, which is always a nice boost to the ego.

This year I didn't get selected but wanted to share a few of the images I put forward.  There's been a lot of talk on twitter about LPOTY and the images that didn't make it and I've seen some great images shown as an example.  It will be interesting to see what's announced in October!

 

Making my next move with Squarespace

I've had a website for around 6 years now.  I started off with a wordpress site and over the years went through a few design changes, adding features and trying to keep it up to date.

The problem was that it never stayed up to date.  Each time I logged in (which was not that often) there was a queue of plugins waiting to be updated or changes to default layouts that needed reverting to my design that after a while the site became a pain to look after.  It even got hacked once on the back of an out of date plugin that had a security flaw.

I decided I wanted something simpler, cleaner and with the ability to one day have the option to sell prints.  Whilst I could have done this via wordpress, I wanted something easier to run.  I looked at a few options and eventually settled on Squarespace (on the back of a recomendation from a friend and adverts on many podcasts I listen to!).  This seems to give me everything I need and I'm hoping that this will allow me to keep the site more up to date than before.

I may play around with the site theme a bit but I'm pleased with how things have gone so far.

So here we are, new site!