Welcome to the January 2021 newsletter.
So it’s been just over a year since my last newsletter. A year that I’m sure a lot of people would prefer to forget, where international travel has all but ceased as we knew it, and freedoms seem to have been taken away.
But I would prefer to concentrate on the positive aspects of 2020. And in addition, I also need to say a warm welcome to the many new people I have met during my camera club presentations, and who have subsequently joined my newsletter.
What happened to me, and why was there no newsletter for so long? The first three months of 2020 saw extensive travel taking me to Scotland, Argentina and Chile, Norway, England, then finally Germany. This was all before the middle of March, when suddenly borders were closed.
In April, I had a trip to Taiwan and Vietnam that had been paid for, but that’s been put on hold.
When the first lockdowns hit, I didn’t sit on my laurels. I had a dogged determination to sort out everything that needed doing, from raising my profile to giving presentations of my work. The net result was that during the middle part of 2020 that Outdoor Photography interviewed me as they were intrigued by my positive attitude when despair was rife everywhere; Canon UK commissioned me for two talks in the latter half of the year and I also entered into negotiations to write and photograph a book on the Loire Valley here in France.
So let’s take a look back at what happened for me in 2020, then look forward to the latter half of the year and into 2022.
When people think of Patagonia then the most likely place that enters their mind is Torres del Paine in Chile. But if you go further south, where Chile borders Argentina, then you have the stunning mountainous fjords that are only accessible by boat.
At the end of January 2020, I was sent down to this truly breathtaking part of the world to photograph a cruise ship as well as the landscapes that it was to be journeying through.
A gruelling 14-hour flight to Buenos Aires, then not even a night’s stay to get down to Ushuaia via another 4-hour flight was a little taxing, but a necessary part of the job. A job that was to turn out to be, so far, one of the most amazing experiences ever that I have been had to do.
Ushuaia sits at the very tip of Argentina and was to be the beginning of what can only be described as an epic journey down to Cape Horn, then back up into Chile through the stunning Glacier Alley and Beagle Channel. Cape Horn itself is an extremely special place, having been protected as a UNESCO Biosphere due to the special nature of the area. Many plants exist only on this spit of land at the end of the world.
But as a photographer who loves mountain scenery, the Beagle Channel and Glacier Alley have to be seen to be believed. You are surrounded by high mountains and glaciers around every corner. High waterfalls tumble down the sides of the mountains, and if you’re lucky, you can also spot the tail fins of whales as they break the surface of the cold water.
The commission itself lasted 8 days and saw me journey from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas, then back again. The ship took a slightly different route on the way back, but each way had its highlights. Certainly, getting up close to the penguins on Magdalena Island is a memory that will stay with me.
Although it sounds like a jolly at the end of the day, there is still a client expecting you to get great imagery. The travel expenses alone to get me down there and onto the cruise amounted to nearly 15000€, so they expect their money’s worth out of you. But if I were asked to go again, I’d head down there tomorrow!
Just before going to the extreme south of the World, or the beginning of the world, depending on how you look at it, I did my annual Glencoe and Rannoch Moor photography workshop and tour. Instead of the usual snow and ice, we were faced with wall-to-wall rain every day.
So if you’re wondering what happens on a photography workshop or tour when inclement weather happens, then I personally prefer to find places where I can keep clients so they don’t get bored. The last thing I want is for people to have paid for my time, only for us to be sitting in a hotel every day.
Chasing the weather isn’t an ideal scenario, but if forced into a corner, then I’ll do it. During this particular time, we made the best of the tiny breaks that Mother Nature gave us, as well as taking off on a day trip to the Isle of Skye as a backup. It’s something I try and avoid, but I would prefer to give people value for money instead of staring at four walls and drinking endless coffees.
Rain isn’t necessarily a show stopper, and if you come prepared for it and can get underneath an umbrella, then you can get some nice atmospheric shots of the surrounding landscape. Of course, it does depend on how heavy that rain is and how much the cloud has descended onto the mountains.
Having run the Glencoe photography workshop and tour for three successive years, sadly, 2021 wasn’t to happen. What has been frustrating this year is that the area had a huge amount of snowfall across the area and sadly, all I could do was watch it on the news. But with the hopeful news of all the vaccines coming out and the population being told that things are going to be eased a lot by the summer of 2021 then I have arranged for the Glencoe photography tour to take place again in January 2022.
Hot off the press!
On the 26th January 2021, I was up early to drive to the beginning of the Loire Valley here in central France. Not being able to travel outside of the country has meant that I have been concentrating my efforts much more locally. The book commission that I have is to capture the area in all four seasons and then to write up each location so that photographers visiting the area know exactly where to go to capture them.
In addition to the latest vlog, do check out what I did in the last 4 months of 2020 as I was discovering many new places in central France, such as Charente, Loire-Atlantique and the Creuse.
