I’d better begin with wishing you a Happy New Year, I sincerely hope 2019 brings health, happiness and a chance to take a deep breath now Christmas is over with. Before the festivities began we were living in the chaos of having our garden totally demolished and replaced. Next week work begins on the kitchen, so now it’s back to more hyperventilating rather than calming breathing exercises. In between it was hectic, no that’s not the correct word, let’s say exhausting; We had all the school activities to attend, Christmas Services and Bazaars. Yes, those School Christmas Bazaars, whereby they ask you to bring in something you no longer want so it can be sold to bolster up the school funds, you attend the Bazaar buy the said something you donated and bring it home again! Once all the school activities are over the children break up from school and the serious business of Christmas gets under way. Family visiting us, us visiting family, us seeing friends and we celebrate my youngest daughters birthday just after New Years Day. This year we had a fabulous few days with my Sister, Brother-in-law and nephew down in Budleigh Salterton. Their hospitality knows no bounds, we found our stay extremely relaxing and it’s always wonderful to see my parents who are fast approaching their nineties. Now, you know I have four children and four grandchildren, of course many of our friends also have young children, so as night follows day there’s clearly going to be a lot of snaps of children and that for me is what Christmas is all about. Rather than explain everything we did I thought I’d simply post a grid which hopefully shows a small part of our Christmas story. You can open them up if you wish by clicking the thumbnail or you can skip it entirely to the next part of this blogpost which will be Street Photography based. I’m merely documenting events here.
I know, you’re right, that just turned into Facebook, my apologies. However, not one of those photos has been posted there. What about my true passion? No, not my wife, I’m speaking of Street Photography. Well, as I’ve mentioned in recent blogs I grabbed what I could when possible. For most that’s all that can be done, I’ve been so used to having a lot of time devoted to being on the streets with my camera. Circumstances have changed, that said I’m committed to spending at least one day per week making photos of strangers. Sounds weird when you think about it, but it’s something that many photographers I know are absolutely devoted to (and of course their wives/husbands) doing. Street Photography gets into your blood, it becomes an obsession. The whole process is extremely satisfying and enjoyable, even when things don’t go as planned and you fail to capture anything of interest. As I said, these are grabbed shots whilst walking with the family or waiting for them to emerge from some shop or other, in the case of the last photo awaiting the arrival of friends at the pub;
As you no doubt gathered this post has also doubled as my “The Monthly” for December. I’m looking forward to 2019, I’ll have less time, but that just means that I’m going to need to be totally on my game whenever I am given the opportunity. Time will tell…
All images can be opened by clicking on the thumbnails and are made using a Leica M. The first six with a Noctilux 50mm attached and everything after with my trusty Summicron 35mm.
I suggest that if you’re reading this blogpost via an email a better experience can be obtained if you open it in your browser.
As always my sincere thanks go to anyone taking the time to read this blog.