This is going to be my space to say on what I think im growing on, what I can do better and what I want to focus on.
Okay so, ive been doing photography since I was 13, I had been gifted a Canon Powershot by my mother for Christmas and I became absolutely obsessed with the photo filter presets & their ‘creativity mode’. I spent like the first 2 years just going on walks around my house taking 1000-2000 photos a day of very similar compositions until I got something right!
This is one of the most notable photos from this period, I took it in 2018 in my garden. The only editing I had done is the creativity mode and an edit on VSCO to lower the exposure. I miss making these compositions, Simple yet full of colour, one of the best sky gradients i’ve ever taken to date! Since I now have a full time job I find it difficult to find myself in these sunset nature situations, but I would love to revisit this style soon!
This is an important photo to me! My parents took me to St Lucia for a Christmas holiday in 2019, excited to work with a beach setting my immature unknowing 14 year old brain decided to get really close to the water… Guess what, this was the last photo on my Canon Powershot, the saltwater fried the camera within seconds after!
This marks a 10 month period of no photos. But I kept on thinking about it.
Next Christmas I bought myself a Canon EOS 4000D - the cheapest basic DSLR at the time. To be honest at this time I didnt even know what a lense was… Probably for the best as I learnt alot.
I did however finally get some results around 3 months after using the camera, with no ‘creativity mode’ I had to utilise VSCO’s editing software to edit my photos!
I started studying colour theory! Realising maybe having every colour possible may not instantly provide a great photo - for example. This basic photo of an AC unit i took in Paphos, Cyprus in 2019/2022 boasts just two base colours, cream and orange - and personally its lighter and subtle on the eyes.
I also started focusing on texture & human subjects, its not perfect… but I remember shooting this just to show the definition on the pores of the subjects skin.
A year later, I decided to take photography A-Level at The Bedford Sixthform, to be honest - with the 3 subjects I took there - photography was the only class with actual passion running through it… Thank you to Nikki for teaching me theory, encouraging me to pick up film photography, and learning how to really use a camera to capture what I want and not just what I think could possibly look good. I picked up a Canon AE1 at this time and started experimenting.
The AE1 was faulty! however I loved the lightleaks it created. The fact I couldnt see my photos until developed gave me sheer excitement- and as per my teachers recommendation, it taught me to work on my settings to make sure the photos are exposed correctly
I remember taking this thinking it looked like the Windows XP screen , both these photos were deeply appreciated by the VSCO community. These photos are exactly what I wanted , they feel nostalgic, imperfect & colourful!
Thanks to my teacher’s help, I was taught to try out contact sheet photography, and manual editing.
I decided this sort of photography was not for me ! I love when other people do it, but there is way too many subjects for my liking.
This is one of my favourite images i’ve ever made, Inspired by Jesse Draxler’s Misophonia series , I took 8 portraits of my subject, printed them on glossy photo paper, took a craft knife and collaged it! Alot of photographers would tell you how it is meant to make you feel - I just thought it looked cool.
As I came to the end of sixthform I was tasked with taking up a subject matter for a final gallery - this is where I felt the most creative in my photography. I took ‘Expression through colour” as my subject, Using as much colour as possible to make an image as expressive as possible - looking back this was a step backward considering my main goal for the last couple years was to work on working with less colour … But maybe it was just a last colour huraah.
These two photos are my favourite images not containing a particular subject! I think I certainly put as much colour as possible. This is when I started experimenting with Adobe Photoshop more. Utilising ‘Neural Filters’ to pick and change tones at will. This expermentation led up to my next photo…
This is an interesting one for me. Using neural filters I took this regular photo and seperated the colours into 20 different sections, Each section was set to an equal scale through RGB… leaving this image. For my gallery exhibition which my school set up , I had printed out each colour seperately on layered transparent paper, lined up perfectly with a back light created a pretty interesting version of this image! To date, this is my most favourited, reposted and appreciated photo! It also earned me the VSCO ARTIST OF THE YEAR 2021.
Now, i’m 18 years old, i’ve just left school and I work a part-time job at McDonalds (lol). For the next two years I spend almost all the money i’ve saved on travelling - and decided to only take photos when im abroad, to work on varying settings and compositions.
First, I went to Lake Garda, Italy
I fell in love with B&W film, especially with water, I love the texture, the sun, the contrast between the water and the boat. This was taking with Ilford XP200 & an Olympus 35 Trip. I love Italy, beauty wherever you are, theres no possibility to take a bad photo in this country I swear, even if your lense cap is still on.
Then, I went to Singapore.
I stayed in a residential part of Singapore with a native family, i’ve never seen such hospitality. The main take aways from these photos is the colour yellow, this ones a good example of focusing less on colour. Nice dark jade green grass with flourishing yellow leaves.
More yellow. I think the detail of this photo is perfect, the shiney gloss on the dogs body. Once again the yellow collar popping out. And using the power of two corners to keep the dogs head central. Shout out Rudy - the Singaporean Special.
This photo was my lockscreen for a year or so! Once again… yellow. I used to watch alot of Willem Verbeek and grainy days, they both shoot at an angle to make the photo more elaborate and create more depth of field. In this photo i’ve done the opposite, Id say my more favourite photos of mine are the ones face on, a flat image. I think sometimes leeping the photo simple and focusing on colour detail can produce just as great photos.
Then I went to Japan!
I took alot of photos im proud of on this trip, Im going to put them all below, then Ill do a bit of a recap after.
Image 1
Image 2
Image 3
Image 4
These are my favourite selects! I think having a limited amount of time forces me to bring my camera out almost all the time. I took my best photos in lowlight so I can utilise the beautiful lights & signs metropolitan Japan has to offer. I experimented so much with motion blur, shown with the 4 image, im going to carry on doing this. Im including image 1 although im pretty sure every photographer in Tomyo takes this exact photo, I love silhouttes, I love bright lights! I wish I had a better chance to do this in my home town ! But theres just nowhere like this! Image 2 & 3 are both shot early in the morning, I under exposed these images to bring out the shadows! I never really captured architecture before so I thought i’d work on making this my own style, using light blues and saturated colours.
Prague…
Prague was actually a drinking holiday, but i took some rewarding photos, the majority of them being silhouette focused photos, desperate to make similar stuff to image 1 in my Japan series. This time however, the lighting was more highkey making the surrounding foreground a secondary subject.
Here is a great example of this! I think the positioning could be better, if I had lined up so the strip lights are evenly cornered - but hey! When in Rome. I love the amber colours and the reflection on the floor tiles - its a good example of the centre not always being the makn subject - in this photo I tend to analyse the left and right walls before even looking at the silhoutte.
This is my first time really getting into tungsten lighting! there isnt much of it in the UK anymore, so it was nice to experiment and get in on that action.
New York!
New York produced some of my favourite compositions to date, the vivid colours, brutal 70/80s architecture, concrete everywhere and interesting restaurants to capture.
This photo is my favourite photo ive ever taken, its simple and follows a line of tables. The colours remind the of the 80’s. I however dont like the christmas lights! they make the photo look seasonal , and if i could go back I wouldve shot from inside the building instead of through the window.
As far as colours go - this is the cream. Red, white and blue baby! I can’t critique this photo. Note the small details, the half silhoutte walking infront on the US flag, the cars windows having the exact same brightness and saturation of the flag behind it. The two shades of blue in the back. I have this photo on my wall.
Okay - thats all my main photography holidays out of the way. That leaves us from November 2024 to August 2025 - what have i been working on?
Well I bought a Contax G1 with a 29mm lens - I love it so much, so far ive only produced one photo im really happy with - its something I need to take time with to master, Im going to Portugal next week so i’ll bring it along and try to get some good shots!
This is the standout photo so far with the G1! Shot in Tate Modern, features two ladies walking through a colourful bizarre room. Compositioning wise, im not used to viewfinders - so the shot I had seen through the camera didnt have any of that wall on the left… TAKE MORE TIME MAX!! I do love the warm orange hue and im glad the subjects arent just silhouttes , i think the motion blue helps bring out their outfits in a more expressive way.
11th August 2025
Okay so at the time of starting this blog all I’ve done is document everything noteworthy since I picked up my first camera. From now on , ill update this page with actual critiques, techniques, thoughts to help improve my photography! Im in Portugal next week, so expect a post here sometime after that!
19th August 2025
Im in Lisbon! Its so pretty and warm here, I’ve brought my Contax G1 with my 28mm lens! Also 9 rolls of film. When im back ill give a review of my photos!!
shot this on my phone, not a pro shot, just to remind me of the trip!
22nd August 2025
Shot on iPhone, The thing that struck me about Lisbon was probably the tiles & posters littered throughout the city.
Ive completed Lisbon! What an interesting city. Beautiful architecture, textures, colours and people! To be honet I dont think I achieved as many great shots as I thought I would, but once i get the 7 rolls back Ill do a review and see how well I did!
In the mean time, we went to the National Tile Museum of Portugal, honestly the best museum ive ever been to. I took a photo of every rectangular tile plate I and im going to eventually make an animation from it!
