Well, what's this.  It's Andy, writing a journal.
Something is clearly wrong with the Universe.
So, here's a little update for you kind folks who pay attention to me on here, and an explanation regarding my sustained lack of activity.

It begins with a little insight into my 'working process'.  I usually take quite a lot of photos - which are, for the most part, of nothing particularly interesting at all.  I'm not very good with portraiture (though trying to improve), hence the preponderance of architectural shots, abstracts and macros.  The problem with these types of photograph is that they're quite dependant on two things:
1) Having interesting objects with good lighting, and
2) Having the presence of mind to notice these things.

Having been in Sheffield for three and-a-half years now, I'm running low on the interesting objects.  This in combination for the awful lighting associated with British winter has created a dearth of subjects.

"Why didn't you take photos in the snow?" comes the inquisitive cry from nobody in particular.  Well, I was a smart young man, and left my camera battery charger at home when I spent 3 months in Wiltshire during winter.  So I couldn't take many interesting photos at all.  It was sad.

Added to this is the difficulty introduced by another aspect of my process - specifically editing and uploading.  I edit my photographs in large batches, and I upload them as I edit them (the only exception here being my Rammstein photos, which I am pacing out to avoid flooding).  My life has been pretty busy recently, and when I've had time to sit and edit photos I've tended to choose other activities instead.  As such, I've been inactive because I've been too active in other areas of life.

On top of those things, I was also in a rather difficult interim period in my life.  I had to take a leave of absence from my final year of University, which placed me in the attractive position of being unable to claim either a student loan or benefits, and looking for a temporary job in a depressed job market.  That was hardly successful, leading to an incredibly short tenure at Subway before I got ditched when they decided to lose staff.  That set me back on to selling my possessions to buy food, and relying on my incredibly supportive housemate to cover rent and bills.  Thankfully that period has now passed, and I'm back in education, complete with delicious loan and my housemate debts cleared.

Finally, added to all that, I began to lose faith in my own abilities.  This is partly because my 'hit' rate with photos seems to have dropped massively.  I started out using about 20/100 of my photos, dropping down to a steady 10/100.  That rate has now hit around 1/100, which was a little disconcerting.  Trust me not to notice that this can be neatly explained by two things:
1) I've been experimenting a lot more than I used to (different lenses, subjects, etc).
2) I've become far more selective about which photos I will edit and upload.  I've become less tolerant of 'almost there' photos.


So, this is just here to say that I'm back - and I hope to remain here a little more consistently now.  


Thanks once again to all my watchers.
Take care.

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A brief feature of some lovely people's beautiful stuff:


Let Smiling Dogs Lie Molly had a permanent smile fixed to her face.  It was just part of who she was.  Sometimes this angered Rachael.  She could be crying on Molly's shoulder and her companion would still be beaming away like an idiot.  

Rachael was always scornful when books talked about dogs knowing how their owners were feeling.  

'Molly never has a fucking clue!  She's just in a constant state of 'Happy'!  She's the least empathic animal on the planet.  I swear, her internal monologue is just 'I'm a dog!  I'm a dog!  I'm a dog!' on loop.'

Once Rachael had h    



    



    


Go to my collections for more.  Lots more!