New Year, New Direction

Welcome or welcome back to my blog. It’s been eight months since I closed my gallery and I’m still partly on the fence as to whether that was the right thing to do. Economically it probably was; the gallery was ticking over ok but at the time I had to hand in notice on my tenancy (October 2022) the UK economy was looking grim and events since have proved that trading on the high street remains pretty brutal. Sadly in the interim the UK has lost what was the flagship venue for landscape photography with the closure of Joe Cornish Galleries in Northallerton just three weeks ago. To a certain extent my gallery was a place for me to go and hide, spending my time printing new work and creating more product and even though that felt like a safe place it prevented me from looking at all the other options and paths available to an ageing landscape photographer in a rapidly changing world of image making.

The day to day running of a framing gallery; discussing customer needs/choices, ordering in the raw materials for printing and framing, keeping up to date with popular stock items, making sure I had adequate stock from guest artists, keeping the space clean and fresh etc left me with very little energy to do much else. and the turnover never reached the critical point I’d hoped would allow me to bring in a manager and free up my time to be a photographer/writer and tour leader again.

So here I am, hoping to make 2024 the start of a new photographic adventure where I get to report back regularly from places further afield and where guiding and helping others on their photographic journey is my main focus. Maybe I can provide some inspiration for others of my age who still want to head out into the higher places to make their images. I just wish I’d been doing more of this when my legs didn’t complain.

New Dawn, Carneddau.

I hope to bring regular trip reports, background stories of older images, hints and tips on workflow that I’ve developed over twenty plus years as a landscape photographer, some gear reviews based not on a brief trial over a weekend but on months and years of experience using kit (for example my Kase filter system and my experiences with my camera bag over the past two to three years). And talk about clothing to make hauling out in all weather more comfortable, something that’s becoming increasingly important to me as I edge closer to being sixty years old. Most of all I intend to make this the place to come to see and talk about my most recent images away from the increasingly frustrating world ( to me at least) of social media, something I’ve been wanting to do for a few years now. I’ll be staying there as there is little choice not to at this point but will will be posting less often and mostly to let everyone one know about content here.

East from Applecross

The benefits of not spending six days a week in a shop are already becoming evident in my output. The quantity of new images is up but that’s not what is important, being out more means seeing more and staying closer to being ‘in tune’ with the landscape. What I mean by that is that I’m more relaxed when I go out because it’s only been a few days since the last time and critically I’m not feeling the pressure to be making images which paradoxically enables me to see more readily and make images. I’ve yet to head out with my camera this month but with fine weather finally setting in and the forecast of some interesting conditions at sunrise here in Shropshire I hope to be finding something worth publishing in the next few days.

A Twist of Lime.

I also want to take this opportunity to remind you that I launched a Youtube channel called Catching The Light with Simon Peter King last Spring and although we’ve been busy with other work we plan to produce new episodes now that the conditions and light have improved. I plan to support this with my writing here by providing more technical and background stories around each episode as they are released. You’ll find the existing episodes at www.youtube.com/@catchingthelightphotography

Thank you and I wish you a very Happy New Year