So that was 2006. Great year for me personally. My HDR Guide was published in Professional Photographer. An Infra-red shot of Liverpool was published in Liverpool’s 800th Birthday Calendar. I’m working with a company called Dot Art and I’ve sold a bunch of my HDR shots as limited edition prints. We recently put some for sale in the Anglican Cathedral, which is just so cool. I got my first major press pass for the Matthew Street Festival. That was a great experience. Quite nerve racking just shooting in-front of a hell of a lot of people. If I didn’t have the pass I’d be unable to get any decent shots of the named bands and I wouldn’t have had anywhere to go and chillout. They had a nice quiet room for us with food n drinks. Really handy.

I went to Toronto to visit my good friend Dave. That was an excellent 3 weeks and upon arriving home I just didn’t like Liverpool anymore. I took a couple of months to get back into the swing of things. Toronto was fantastic. I watched a show on Due South last night that showed areas of Toronto where they filmed and I was like “I’ve been there! There! There!!!” and I missed it. Looking through my recent shots of Liverpool has made me really want to go back to Toronto and shoot more there. I also nipped to London for a quick photo shoot. For the ¬£60 it cost in total I really need to do it again. Next time I’ll probably book a Travel Lodge or something and spend the weekend, just to take the edge off a bit. There’s so much I feel like I need to get done down there.

I also did some work for the Independents Biennial which was really fun. Again a bit nerve racking meeting total strangers and trying to get good portraits from them, but the whole experience was great for my confidence. Doing some work for Another Late Night also helped my confidence. We did a street photoshoot with random strangers, daunting yet fun. Some people just ran off screaming, others really loved it.

I’m probably forgetting a whole bunch of things this year but on the whole its been great. My confidence has been boosted so much from working with professional photographers, total strangers, magazines, exhibiting in galleries (including the Tate Liverpool!), and having people I’ve looked up to comment on my work. I’ve had ups and downs but I think the best thing is validation from people. Its all well and good having other photographers on forums saying that the photo works, but having members of the public and big named photographers say my work is fantastic is well, more than I could have ever hoped for. Sure you may feel like you can take a nice photo cos your ego helps you out, but actually hearing it from people you aspire to be like, its just so nice. Its like getting an A on an exam or passing your degree or something. Its validation. They say I’m good and they’ve made it in the industry, so knowing that I now have the confidence to talk more about my work. Its given me the confidence to call up people and introduce myself. If they don’t like my stuff, thats fine. They just don’t like my stuff, move on. Next client. 2007 should hopefully be a much better year. Dunno how it could top this but hey, it should and I’ll do my best to make sure it will.

So lastly, thanks to everyone who’s stopped by. Thanks to everyone who’s commented on my work. You’ve all helped me so much this year. Thanks 🙂 Happy New Year, cya on the flip side.