How was 2024?

If you would like to skip the run down and see the highlight photos, they are in my 2024 Highlights Gallery.

Arts

Commercial

Queer Work

Personal Work

Writing

Website updates

The business

2025

Wrap up

Business was brutal and I maybe suffering from Long Covid, but the work I did was always interesting and kept me going. The chart below shows diversity of my work and interests. I am proud and happy with the work I produced in 2024. If you commissioned me, thank you. You fed my cats and my curiosity.

Arts

In 2024 I photographed everything from bees the size of a grain of rice to ships being dissected to foam taking over a shopping centre staircase. It’s why I love working in the arts. Each job is completely different from the last and perfect for my curious ADHD brain. At the start of the year, I worked with the curators at National Museums Liverpool to photograph their bee collection for use in the exhibition “Bees: A Story of Survival”. The photographs were used around the city on posters and banners and were widely embraced by national media getting coverage in Sky News, New Scientist, My Modern Met and Country File. I was delighted to see my work featured there.

Events-wise I saw a mountain of foam move down a staircase in Liverpool One by artist Stephanie Lüning. It was quiet something to see when the wind caught it. Fire-breathing dragons roamed Albert Dock, and on another day there was a Disco Turtle. The ‘River of Lights’ display saw many fun light installations around the city. Back home in New Brighton, a monster called Monty roamed the marine lake where I normally swim. The swimming community there created a synchronised dance piece in the water as part of the event.

Aside from those highlights, I was also commissioned to photograph a few new exhibitions at the Museum of Liverpool and Walker Art Gallery. ‘Conversations’ saw 40 Black women and non-binary artists take over a gallery space and produce diverse work from a floor-to-ceiling chalk installation written directly onto the museum walls, to a video game about Black Trans identity. “National Treasures” saw me commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery in London to photograph the “Rokeby Venus” painting by Diego Velázquez. It had been loaned to the Walker Art Gallery as part of a nationwide project to make art accessible to those outside of London. The exhibition at the Walker looked at the male, female and queer gaze asking visitors to question what they knew about the painting. “Queens” saw photographer Magnus Hasting bring his epic work on Drag Queens to the museum and featured billboard-sized prints of drag artists from around the world. It was a joy to see.

Commercial

Liverpool Football Club Commission

On the only day in winter that it snowed I was standing on the streets outside of Liverpool Football Club’s Anfield Stadium trying to produce a series of portraits without snow. It was tricky but we got there and the campaign was featured on Amazon for a while. I worked with local company Black and Ginger to produce a series of portraits for a new apprenticeship program in the city, from chefs to medical staff to working at the container ship dock. I always enjoy where my camera takes me. New artwork was produced near the arena and featured local comedy heroes, including Ken Dodd. I was asked to photograph it and create a portrait of Lady Anne Dodd, a delight to chat to. As part of the “Queens” exhibition, I had 2 minutes to photograph Danny Beard in a box.

Queer Work

2024 saw the range of clients I work with grow and I decided to create a section on my site just for work in the LGBTQ+ community. While technically not different from the work I normally do, I felt that having photos of people in kink wear for safe sex packs didn’t quite sit next to a portrait of a chef. I’m incredibly proud of my work in 2024 which ranged from portraits of trans people for an upcoming exhibition to working with the LGBT Foundation on the 30th anniversary of their Safe Sex initiative which sees them distribute boxes of free safe sex packs around Manchester. Queer House Party were an astonishing to photograph at Future Yard, and I loved photographing the DJ booth that was set up at the Royal Albert Dock for Pride in Liverpool.

Personal Work

As the year went on, I felt like I wasn’t making any personal work, but by the end of the year, a few small ideas became real, tangible projects, and I have plans for 2025.

Exhibited a series of landscape photographs discussing the idea of Safe Spaces in nature at Start Yard in Birkenhead with Routes471 CIC

Worked on a series of self-portraits to possibly go with the ‘Safe Spaces’ project

Continued to document the local swimming community

Concluded my COVID-19 journal after finally catching COVID for the first time

Photographed the aurora at home, twice

Produced portraits at Trans Pride Brighton, Manchester Pride and Liverpool Pride

Made a series of portraits of Cosplayers at Sci-Fi Weekender in Great Yarmouth

Travelled to Berlin, Paris, and Hvar (Croatia)

Writing

I enjoy writing. In the past, I’ve co-written 2 technical photography books, articles for photography magazines and books and been blogging for over 20 years. Writing is one of my earliest creative outlets because I could afford to do it, unlike photography. During the lockdown years, a few writing commissions came my way that reignited my passion for writing. However, in 2024, there were no commissions. I still wrote a lot. The amount on my disabled non-binary newsletter, Hello Computer, could equal a book. Hello Computer celebrated its 5th birthday in 2024. Growing the audience away from the more popular newsletter systems is proving incredibly tough, but I write it for myself first and foremost. It would be nice if the newsletter could make money though. It’s a full day’s work after all.

I also started another newsletter focusing on LGBTQ+, disabled and neurodivergent photography called Stargazer.

As photography commissions have declined I do hope to compensate with some paid writing work. How or where is a good question. When I’m out in the world I rarely see anyone like me, so surely that means there’s space for my voice in any photography magazine. What would I say though? A question that pops up when I think about writing another book. HDR for male bodies in skirts? (I wrote HDR books 16 years ago and now wear skirts.)

Website

Time and effort were put into making my portfolio site work. A long long time ago someone once said to never use underconstruction.gif because a website is always under construction. That is very true as this site has been under construction for 2 decades. I haven’t been happy with it for a long time but now it feels good, like it’s going somewhere.

As a Photoshelter user for maybe 15 years, I cancelled my subscription in 2024. It felt like they abandoned the people who first believed in them and went after corporate money. I hope that isn’t the case, but it’s how it reads to me. Their corporate website was refreshed and corporate clients have a whole suite of features that we freelancers have been promised for over a decade. So I’m out, and I rebuilt my print library on my site. It’s a WooCommerce system in WordPress with The Print Space handling prints via their Dropship system. While a good system doesn’t cost me anything to run, it’s a messy process compared to Photoshelter where it took 1 click to make a photo available as a print. On my system, I have to upload to Dropship, set up the options for the print and then import it to my site and make final tweaks. An easier system would be nice, but with this, I can build an Etsy store if I want to.

Lastly, I added a Now page for what I’m currently working on. The page also has my yearly highlights archives so you can see what I’ve done up to now.

The business

The commissions I worked on in 2024 were an absolute joy, but they were less than in 2023. It was the hardest year of my career, outside of lockdown times. In the free time I had I looked at a lot of data about my business and realised that it wasn’t a full-time job. Due to ADHD/being autistic, it feels like a full-time job. I barely played any video games in 2024 because I was always working on my laptop. Yet the money I took home was 1/3rd of the minimum wage in 2024.

I need to point out that the print sales numbered 3, which shows how little money stock libraries bring in.

After 5 years with an Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis, and 1 year with an ADHD diagnosis I am making progress on how I best work. It is slow progress and something that should have been dealt with when I was younger. Except it wasn’t. So I’m trying to manage my disability and my business so I can pay the bills, save a bit for the future, and find clients who enjoy the things I enjoy. 2024 has shown me I’m not coping. In some ways, I wish I worked for a company and only had to focus on photography and my disability. They could focus on business, marketing, accounting, websites, blogs, social media, etc.

I am a good photographer. My clients are happy with my work, and they keep commissioning me. My business idea works, but I am also disabled as I am Autistic. The reality is that for people like me, it is hard to live this life. A report came out in 2024 that highlighted the income gap between disabled and non-disabled artists.

The report highlights disparities across different demographics and professions, with women earning 40% less than men, and disabled artists earning a median of just £3,750 per annum. Meanwhile photographers and illustrators reported median earnings of £12,500, while painters earn around £7,500. – The Art Newspaper

I’m not alone in this struggle, and something needs to change.

How much money I made this year | The White Pube. or a text about how ‘Culture is bad for you’

Artists’ Earnings Report by the University of Glasgow and DACS – DACS. A new report released today by the University of Glasgow commissioned by DACS, reveals the extent of falling earnings for visual artists in the UK.

UK Visual Artists Earnings Crisis 2024. A new report reveals UK visual artists earn a median income of just £12,500—less than half the national median—amid deepening inequalities and the rise of AI exploitation.

2025

Prints have been made and delivered for an exhibition titled “Future Retrospective” at Start-Yard in Birkenhead with Routes471 CIC. It opens on Saturday 11th January and runs till the end of the month. I’m already working on a series of prints for their February exhibition “A Celebration of Wirral”.

After documenting 15 years of Liverpool Pride I hope to make a zine or a book to celebrate all the people I’ve met over the years that will be out later in the year. I plan to return to Manchester Pride and document life there as it was different to Liverpool and quite interesting. I also hope to return to photograph Trans Pride in Brighton or Pride in Brighton, depending on how the year lines up. A dream would be to return to Berlin to photograph their events, but I’m not sure funds will permit that this year.

2025 will be my 5th year as part of the local outdoor swimming community and it would be fun to make a zine to celebrate that too.

I would like to expand my work in the LGBTQ+ community. Working with the LGBT Foundation has been eye-opening. The portraits we did were a collaboration based on people coming together, talking, laughing and having fun sharing who they are. It’s one of the things I love about photographing Pride and have often felt that I need more of it in my life. I see beautiful work being done by photographers I admire and I would like to push myself to produce similar work on the themes of body positivity, gender, identity and sexuality. One idea is a series of photographs subverting the traditional male gaze of arty naked women in landscapes. A body-positive queer version of that would be fun. Aside from that I am interested in working with individuals as much as charities/arts orgs to do intimacy/body positivity photography. I haven’t figured out how exactly to market that work as my main portfolio/social media presence is focused on art and culture, not bums. It should stand on its own, somewhere… somehow.

Wrap Up

In 2024 I photographed;

The Milkway Galaxy in Croatia

The Berlin Wall

A teddybear driving a van in Paris

Indiana Jones Snr and Junior dancing in a nightclub

The aurora over the lake I swim in

A woman in lingerie eating a pizza

The LGBTQ+ community being fearless and joyful

A pineapple-themed Starfleet officer

Friends completing a 2-mile swim across the River Mersey

Bees the size of a grain of rice that were utterly beautiful

Colorful foam that took over Liverpool One

Footballers, architects, dancers, musicians, support staff, Drag Queens, Disco Turtles, fire-breathing dragons

And myself in my safe spaces

That’s what I do. It’s wild. More in 2025, please. More work that commissions me to go places, learn new things and photograph the real world.