Night Walk.

I’m not a habitual night time photographer.

I enjoy taking photos any time of the day or night. It’s just that I tend to be out predominantly during daylight hours. Some of my favourite images by other photographers are cities at night. The glow of neon signs, car headlights glinting off wet roads, the silhouettes of people in lit doorways.

The other day, we stayed over in the spa town of Harrogate in North Yorkshire. It’s a very smart town with grand buildings and large areas of open land in its centre. My partner and I have got into the habit of having a night or two away just prior to the Christmas festivities.

After dinner, I went out for a walk around the area of the hotel. It was raining, not enough to dissuade me from venturing out however. I attached my 50mm f1.8 s Nikon lens to the Nikon Z7ii and set forth.

The Christmas lights were strung across the roads, lighting up shops and surrounding doorways. I wanted to capture the town, quiet, in preparation for the busy holiday period. It had a strange beauty in the rain, a stillness.

I also wanted to give the camera a run out in low light to see how it performed. The images came back as noise free and sharp. I usually shoot in highlight metered mode but switched to standard to see if that worked.

I have learned how to meter, how to use my iso range, shutter speed and aperture for different lighting and conditions but still there is a niggling doubt in my mind that I’ve done it correctly. I have a certain level of ability and increasing experience but you can never be certain it will be right. I also wonder whether I am editing images with too much ‘gloom’. A few of my images that have been printed have been lightened up to improve the printed image. I know night photography has inherent levels of darkness because they are taken at night (duh!) but its the contrast between light and dark that makes them so interesting.

I have a certain style and am known for that style. I like dark and moody but I ask myself, am I overdoing the dark and moody vibe? Please feel free to comment on this issue as well as any other aspects of my photography. My style has changed over the years as I have improved my editing and use of light but I also recognise my art is an evolving process. I would like to take brighter images or at least try editing them in a lighter fashion. This photo session however was all about the dark and the contrast of sparkly Christmas lights. Towns and cities feel different at this time of the year, more hopeful, more optimistic. There is a point in January when all the festive decorations come down and the streets at night become a little bit less fun. We are left with shop windows, late night takeaways and lit doorways. We have to be more creative and search for the light in the darkness.

So what will 2025 bring? For me, it is about building my portfolio, my business and getting more visible as a professional photographer. I have a joint exhibition at the end of February 2025 in Hebden Bridge, with my good friend and fellow photographer, Will Lake. Several of my new prints on show will be based by the sea. They are not centred around Calderdale and focus more on the interaction between nature and the human impact on those spaces. I hope you all have a very peaceful and happy Christmas. Spread the word and please leave comments below as they help me with my photographic journey.

Out of Hibernation

Winter tends to feel like a long season. Longer than others given the temperatures, the absence of daylight hours and the incessant rain. In winter, most plants go into a period of hibernation. We need these cold months to enable germination of seeds dropped from the previous year. They allow new growth to appear and carry on the cycle of life. Trees shed their leaves in autumn in order to prepare for the long cold winter months. They preserve their energy in order to resume when the temperatures increase and available light is more plentiful. Now I guess you probably all know these facts about the life cycle of plants.

People adjust to winter as well. We behave differently because of the weather and light conditions. Many photographers relish the low sun and the bare trees. I love taking photos in winter and not just of snow or frost. Spring is and always has been a welcome relief for me but a tricky season to take photos in. I love blossom. new growth, longer daylight hours but it is an unpredictable season. I feel as if I should be doing more, of feeling renewed but this doesn’t always follow. I’m a complex kind of guy, you could say contrary. I love photography and everything surrounding it. I have learned and hopefully improved over recent years but am left with the nagging feeling of having left it all a little late in life. This feeling won’t stop me pursuing my passion and career but it is as if I am playing catch up and to much younger photographers.

All the photos featured in this post are shot in or around Hebden Bridge. It has been my permanent home for a couple of years and it is a good place to live. The artistic community is vibrant and allows me the opportunity to join in with my work. Times are tough for freelance artists, makers, creatives at present. Finances are stretched and people are prioritising basic needs above art. I have an exhibition on at Old Town Post Office currently and I love showing my work to the general public. I could have sold more, have had more at my private viewing but I am grateful to Sarah for giving me the opportunity to show my work. I am participating in the town’s Open Studios this year and have another exhibition with my photographer friend Will booked for early September.

I see my current exhibition as part of my emergence from a creative hibernation. I should be out more often, taking photographs. I should be pushing my work and offering my professional services to small businesses. I should be doing all these things but I am not. That’s not to say I don’t intend to. I am in that place that most burgeoning professional artists find themselves of not quite believing it’s all worth it. The photography I love, the resultant prints look beautiful even if the images aren’t Magnum Photos calibre. I find it hard to say what type of photographer I actually am which is difficult in this age. We like pigeon holes, categories, niches to place people in. Customers, other creatives want to know what you are in one sentence. Long explanations can be pretentious or misleading. They give the listener/reader a sense of uncertainty in the artist or worse, a feeling that to be pigeon holed is to stifle their creativity.

When people ask what sort of photographer I am, I know what sort I am not more than what I am. There you see, he is being vague so he’s either pretentious or amateur. The best description I can come up with is an ‘outdoor and documentary photographer’. I remember trying to write mission statements in my previous career and struggling with it. I know I am not currently a studio portrait, full time landscape, sports, photojournalist photographer. I do all the bits left after those are taken up. Going back to hibernation and emerging from it; I guess I need to be more business like, more goal oriented. I need to set up future work, plan future projects. I just have to believe that striving will produce results. I am not alone in that I’m fully aware. I have no intention giving up and saving myself the effort. I have spent 40 years trying to find a job I love and I am not about to give up!