This vlog update addresses the lack of content since the spring. Because travel has opened up, it means that some jobs that were waiting for restrictions to be lifted could come to fruition.
So interspersed with my update are images of what happened since it was filmed. But hopefully, you’ll have a good understanding of how things work in my day-to-day life as a working professional.
My YouTube channel is dedicated to all things landscape and travel photography, so if that’s your thing, then I’d love to have you come along for the ride.
For anyone who follows me regularly, the drop in uploads probably stood out. I had been posting far more often before, especially when travel was restricted, and I had more control over my week. Once Europe opened up, that changed quickly.
Because I live in France, I was in a good position to move around again for work. Projects that had been waiting in the background suddenly became real jobs with real dates, real clients, and real deadlines. That meant I could get back out on the road and start producing commissioned work again.
At the time of this vlog update, I had been in Germany for about ten days. I was there working for several different clients, producing a mix of still images, time-lapse work, and other visual material. It was good to be back doing that kind of assignment work, even if it meant the vlogs had to take a step back.
The truth is simple. I am a working photographer first, and YouTube fits around that. The channel gives people a look into my life as a professional photographer, but it is not the thing that decides my schedule. Paid work does that.
There is always a balance to strike with YouTube. When I have the time, I enjoy filming regularly and sharing what I’m doing. Back in 2020, that often meant one vlog a week, and sometimes two, because travel restrictions changed the shape of my work.
Once client work returned, the balance shifted again.
That is not me brushing YouTube aside. It is me being honest about how this profession works. If I am on location and a client needs a certain shot, that comes first. If the light changes, the rain moves in, or a schedule has to be rewritten on the spot, then the day belongs to the assignment.
A lot of photography work looks simple from the outside. You travel somewhere, put the camera on a tripod, and make pictures. In reality, commissioned work is full of moving parts, and they rarely wait for a second camera and a piece to camera.
Sometimes I have one client with a tight brief. At other times, I have several people expecting different things from the same trip. Add poor weather into the mix, and the whole day can change in minutes. I might arrive ready to shoot one subject and end up having to pivot because the conditions are wrong, the light has gone flat, or a location is no longer workable.
That is why I said this update was not a full vlog in the usual sense. It was more of a check-in. That’s how it works as a professional photographer. The paid work has to lead, and the behind-the-scenes filming only happens when there is time and space for it.
When I recorded this vlog update, I was in Cologne, Germany, and I had already been there for roughly ten days. The trip was not a holiday or a casual wander with the camera. I was there because work had restarted, and Germany was one of the places where those commissions were finally happening.
Being back out on the road felt good. After long stretches of restricted movement, it was a relief to return to proper assignments, meet deadlines, and work with clients face-to-face again. That return to normality, if you can call it that, was the main reason the vlogs had become less frequent.
There was also a sobering side to being in Germany at that time. I was in the wider region affected by the flooding, and from where I was staying, the worst-hit areas were not far away, roughly 30 miles or so. The Rhine, near my hotel, was already high, and the weather had made the scale of the situation hard to ignore.
Someone I spoke to the previous evening put it bluntly:
“It’s mother nature taking revenge for building on a flood plain, and the water has to go somewhere.”
Whatever wording you use, the outcome was awful. Homes were destroyed, people were hit hard, and it was one of those moments that remind you how small your plans feel next to the force of weather.
That contrast stayed with me. On one hand, I was back working again after months of disruption. On the other hand, people nearby were facing damage and loss on a scale no one wants to witness.
The setting for the vlog update itself was unusual. I was standing on the roof of Lanxess Arena in Cologne. Beneath me was a huge indoor venue, and if the roof had opened beneath my feet, I would have dropped into a 22,000-seat arena used for sport, concerts, and major events.
I was told by someone with me the night before that it is the most visited arena in Europe, and that it outdoes Madison Square Garden in New York. I have not checked those numbers myself, so I took that as local insight rather than a hard fact, but it certainly gave a sense of how big the place is.
What I can say with complete confidence is that the view across Cologne was stunning. From up there, the city opens out in a way that changes your sense of scale. Rooftops, river, bridges, and skyline all sit in front of you, and for a photographer, it is the sort of location that makes you want to stop talking and start shooting.
Even though the vlog schedule had slowed, there was plenty ahead. Some of the videos people would be seeing around this time had already been filmed a few weeks earlier. In other words, the uploads and the real-world travel were not lining up neatly.
By the time this update went live, I hoped to be in Asia. More precisely, I hoped to be in Uzbekistan.
Uzbekistan was one of the big reasons I sounded excited in this vlog update. At the time of filming, it was 20 July, and I was due to fly out on 30 July. The plan was to spend three weeks in the country working on several assignments.
Part of that trip involved producing imagery for clients. One of the major projects, though, was wider than that. I was due to photograph the country in a way that could help promote it to tourists on a broad scale. That gave the job a clear purpose, and it also made the trip feel bigger than a standard commission.
The schedule looked something like this:
That last point mattered. I was not heading out alone to improvise my way through the country. I was expecting to have a team around me, and that changes the pace and scale of a shoot. For a travel photographer, that sort of project is hard not to be excited about.
If places like that catch your eye, you can also browse my Photography Tours & Workshops, where I feature trips across Europe and Asia, including Uzbekistan.
After that, the next date in the diary was the Photography Show in the UK, planned for mid-September. I was due to be one of the presenters, with my slot scheduled for Sunday afternoon, from what I remembered at the time.
That plan came with a layer of uncertainty because travel rules were still shifting. I was double vaccinated, and I hoped that would be enough to make the trip straightforward. The idea was simple enough: fly in on Saturday, do the presentation on Sunday, and leave on Monday.
Whether that would work depended on the rules staying put, and that was not something anyone could take for granted. Who knows what the British government was going to do with quarantine rules at that point? That frustration came through because many photographers and travellers were dealing with the same moving target.
Beyond the UK, Italy was a possibility. I did not know for certain at that stage, so I kept it in the “maybe” column, but it was another sign of how much had changed once travel reopened.
From my base in France, Europe had started to feel reachable again. That did not mean every trip was easy or guaranteed, but it did mean the work calendar was filling up in a way it had not for quite some time.
I think it helps to be clear about where the vlog fits in my wider work. YouTube is not separate from my photography life, and it is not a polished version of it either. It is a window into what I do when I am out in the field, travelling, shooting, and trying to make a living with a camera.
That is why the channel changes pace when the work changes pace. If I am at home more, you will probably see more frequent updates. If I am travelling for assignments, the videos may thin out because the days are built around client needs, not upload dates.
My YouTube channel has always been about landscape and travel photography. That remains the core of it. The difference is that when commissioned work returns in full, the content around it has to fit the gaps rather than drive the day.
I don’t want to pretend otherwise. A weekly schedule sounds tidy, but professional photography is rarely tidy. One day, you have ideal conditions and a clear brief. The next day, the weather turns, the light fails, or a client needs something else. That is normal.
So if a vlog update appears in place of a longer episode, that usually means I am out working. It means the camera is busy, the diary is full, and the stories will come through later once there is time to shape them properly.
Even within a work-heavy trip, Cologne made an impression. It is a beautiful city, and seeing it from above only sharpened that feeling. Some cities reveal themselves street by street, whilst others make sense when you get high enough to see how everything connects. Cologne gave me a bit of both.
That is part of what I enjoy about this kind of life. Even when the schedule is tight and the work comes first, a place can still get under your skin. A skyline, a river, a rooftop view, all of it stays with you.
The reason for this quieter spell was never complicated. Travel reopened, the commissioned jobs returned, and my attention went where it had to go.
If you’ve been wondering where the vlogs went, the answer is work. I was back out in Germany, preparing for Uzbekistan, hoping to make the UK event happen, and trying to keep up with a diary that had suddenly filled again.
That is a good problem to have. It means I am out making photographs, seeing places, and building the experiences that end up in the videos later on.
