My 2024 photography year review
January
A big break over Christmas and New Year in The Netherlands gave me some space to think what to do next after a fairly chaotic end to the last half of 2023. That year saw me midway through my MA to finishing it up, getting made redundant from my main job and finding a new freelance one, and my mum dying in September meaning I had stacks on that occupied my time and thoughts. A break in another country gave me a little thinking room.
I finished my Photography MA at the end of December and got my results back in January: a respectable 67% for my final major project which meant a Merit award (60% overall).
Part of the project was sequencing a photobook which formed the basis of my exhibition in April. Another good outcome of the project was that it pushed more people at Brunswick into engaging with daily photography more. Some people picked it up during the summer and more are slowly becoming more interested in taking photos.
February and March
I barely got any photography over February and March as I was busy with a design contract for Leeds Building Society. Although looking back, this was also a welcome break from even thinking about taking photos after having crunched through so much in the previous two years. That’s not to say that I didn’t get much done as right round the corner was April.
April
This month I had my first photography exhibition showing the ‘Right Here, Right Now. It’s Historical, Big, Huge and Beautiful’ project that formed my final major project for the MA (I’m still slightly cursing myself for using that title as I can never quite remember the wording order in the title).
The showing itself was over a week at Fabrication in York while they were still in the old River Island store. You can read a full write up of how it went here. In summary: it was nice for a first exhibition and gave me a good idea of how I would set it up next time. I had the centrepiece build which represented the walled garden itself then hung plenty of extra prints around the sides. I can’t say it was the most sophisticatedly produced show ever as it/right-here-right-now-its-historical-big-huge-and-beautiful was on a budget but it went down well.
One happy coincidence happened on the Thursday when different groups related to Brunswick happened to meet in the space of the first two hours. Adam, one of the originators of the charity plus an early volunteer, a large group from the main site and some other recent volunteers all crossed paths. We also had someone related to the farmers that work the fields outside the walled garden dropping at the same time, who filled us in on some of the history of their connection which in turn led us to finding out more about one of the old head gardeners. We may have also solved whose initials these are in this stone block (but that is a longer story for another day).
May
A quiet month which saw me work on some food test shots in the Experimental Test Lab X0001 aka our back room. The horse racing season at York also started, in which I mucked about with both video and photography.
June
May and June also brought back the This Is York PechaKucha events which I have been photographing over the last two or three years, this year visiting two new venues with the Doe Bakehouse and York Theatre Royal as part of the York TakeOver Festival. The Artsbarge are now taking over the PK events and I’m waiting to see how these get set up.
July
Lawtech UK event
To the centre of town in the Guildhall for a launch event for Lawtech UK Bridge on one of the hottest days I’ve taken photos on in recent years - dear god it was melting.
Graduation
Both myself and my wife travelled down to Falmouth for a week's holiday combined with the annual graduation event at Penryn. I got a chocolate coin off Dawn French, we did a fair bit of swimming and we squeezed in a visit to see some relatives too.
A good chunk of my course cohort also made it to the ceremony (quite a few are spread over the world) - it was a decent finale to what we’d worked through both individually and as a group. It won’t be the last of us working together - we’ve formed Biscuit Books and are releasing photo books through that imprint for the foreseeable future.
If you want to see examples of the Falmouth MA Graduate photography work, Source Magazine has a fulsome list here.
Also throughout the year I’ve been doing trips out with York Photographers which is very nice and not very camera clubby. There’s been quite a few events this year including talks and just wandering around town taking pics but without the typical pictures of a Robin (latin name) On A Spade In The Snow.
August
Living next to the racecourse has meant I’ve had ready subjects for the last five years or so and made a mini project out of it. Not sure what will happen when the 2025 season starts given that we’re moving out of the area so we’ll see how much available time I’ll be able to push forward with it.
September
Up to Gateshead for a freezing day of photography for Great North Run photos for WaterAid. You can see loads more of that here.
October
I had work from my final major project at the Archbishop’s walled garden as part of the annual York Unlocked event, which involves (as you might have guessed) stacks of places usually closed to the public being open for a weekend. Note to self for next year: using plastic envelopes as improvised covers seemed like a good idea at the time and works well up to a point apart from water condensing in the direct sunlight.
November
Back to the Netherlands again to visit family and friends, look at a wikkle baby plus finally meeting fellow designer Martin Pyper in the flesh.
December
Another mini-exhibition with a small part of ‘Right Here, Right Now….’ photography work on show at York Hospital as part of their regular Arts In Hospitals series. You’ll be able to see the pics near junction 7 (near the yellow Amazon locker, you know the spot) until March 2025.
Things for next year
A new website for starters - Photoshelter is getting a bit past its sell-by date for what I use it for and I could do with a simpler outlook and set up. I’ve had a few reviews over the year and all pointed to drilling down into what I actually needed to use the site for. Fingers crossed it will have popped into existence by late January and you may be reading this on the new site (UPDATE: got it sorted over Christmas).
As well as continuing with the project, I’m going to try to get the ‘Right Here, Right Now…’ work into more exhibitions further afield than York. Where it’ll go I’m not quite sure yet but I have applied to a few things.
We’re also hoping to do some more Biscuit Books events in 2025 after successful showings in BOP Bookfair, next steps are currently TBC.