The difference a year makes...

One year ago this week, I was sitting in a garden chair in my bedroom, battling two problems. First up was achieving a position of comfort, as my elbows rested uneasily on the arms of the chair, impeding my use of the computer’s trackpad. Secondly, I faced the issue of how best to salvage the photographs I’d taken at the 2008 Norwich Cathedral Christmas Fayre, littered as they were with problems of sharpness, blurring and some ghastly composition, not to mention poorly lit and showing next to no evidence of any interaction between myself and my worthy subjects.

Three hundred and sixty-three (or so) days on, things are a little different. I write to you now from a proper armchair in my bedroom (albeit one which would like to gobble me up), on which my arms rest comfortably, and I have a whole year’s experience in making photographs, which has helped immeasurably to iron out each of the aforementioned problems. I am not claiming perfection – oh-ho, lawks, by no means – but, just as a toddler eventually more-or-less stops wetting himself, after a year’s practice, I can be more-or-less confident in my ability to deliver photographs which are (comparatively) well-composed, sharp and devoid of blurring. Equally importantly, though, is the confidence I have developed in setting up shots with people.

A year ago, I would shoot furtively and hurriedly away, and mutter an incoherent ‘sorry’ and ‘thank you’ to anyone caught in my viewfinder. If I was feeling particularly brash, I would ask someone to pose for the camera, take one photograph, at a push two, and feel houndingly guilty for taking those eight or nine seconds of someone’s time. The resulting shots would show that sense of hurry and lack of composure. Of this attitude, I can only say that it was a necessary stage to pass through on my photographic learning curve, that I have passed through it, and that I am piddling glad that Norwich Cathedral weren’t paying me to photograph for them.

These days, the composure is there with the composition. I cannot claim perfection – whenever I take my camera to work with people, nerves creep over me – but I will say that I have learned to convert that nervousness into concentration, which I think has improved my images tenfold.

As we look into 2010, I resolve to improve my images tenfold again – keep watching this space…