This year I have really worked hard to improve my photography skills. There has been many an occasion that I have been driven to distraction with fury or frustration because I couldn’t make an image in my head into reality. Equally, there have been many occasions when I feel as though I’ve achieved something remarkable.

Some of my favourite photos of the year have been ones where I’ve really struggled to get the image I want and MAKE it work for me. This isn’t quite on that scale but it is one where I have struggled to get what I wanted. I had my camera on motor-drive and the studio lights couldn’t keep pace with the shutter so this, the best composition of the evening, was massively under exposed. I’ve brought it back from the dead in Photoshop (something in which I’m woefully inadequate) with DM’s guidance.

Mostly, my photos are taken and posted with little in the way of cropping and less in the way of PS manipulation. I have taken lessons well from DM about getting the composition I want, framed in the way I want it. I crop images maybe once or twice every month. Equally, I share his views (that he spouts vociferously) about heavy use of PS meaning that a pic becomes something other than a photo and I too see myself more as a photographer than a ‘digital artist’ so I keep clear of most of that stuff.

I have learned a few useful techniques in PS but on an occasion like this evening, I still needed to ask David to give me some guidance about how to resurrect my photo.

Anyway, I think I’ve learned a great deal and am pretty proud of my photography these days. My calendar is at the printers at the moment and will be mailed to 3,500 of our key clients during the next week. I can’t say how honoured I am about that.

I love it when I hear people say that I inspired them for whatever reason but it’s usually my words that people refer to rather than my images. Occasionally (very occasionally) I get a vote on a pic and earlier this year I got a no 1 gallery, which was a huge thrill. Sometimes I have started something that surprises me…..like the handbag thing – but I regard that photo as a pretty cack photo really, it’s just people’s natural curiosity that made it work and people’s desire to reciprocate that has made the gallery so populated and hit so many times.

This time though, I take my inspiration from DM whose 7th December pic was, in my view, sublime and deserved to be voted for but was completely ignored for some reason (I’m about to fix that). We both laughed when we saw Jude, Angela, Jeanne and Ian’s ‘tribute’ shots so I thought I’d get in on the act too. Mine is taking Jeanne’s on another stage. The broken wine glass has appeared before and still happened to be laying around on the table when we got home to Sandhurst tonight.

Oh I wonder if I’m going to get flamed again by Mr Angry about PotD people vote-rigging? Ah well, if I do, it’ll go the same way as the last one…..straight in the trash can!!!