My daily photo blog is coming up to a thousand photos. A thousand photos sounds like an achievement, but it’s not really. It’s like living to be 100: there is no special talent involved, you just have to not die. Anyone can publish a daily photo blog if they have low enough standards.
This year I’ve taken a lot of photos and it is depressing to see how few truly resonate. I tell myself this is the nature of photography: try, fail, try again, then choose the least bad ones.
A great photograph has to be visually arresting and tell a story. When we look at our own photographs we tend to insert a personal story and are capivated by the social relations we have with people. None of this is communicable to a stranger unless it is captured in the image.
Perhaps it helps to have strict criteria about what you want to achieve with photography. I like those Instagrams which display a perfectly uniform sequence of landscapes: they’ve made their decision about what makes a photo and won’t chuck in a pic of a dog looking askance. I just post whatever I think is interesting.
I revere photojournalists who risk their lives in warzones and disaster areas. I even admire those who jostle elbows with the paparazzi. Being in the right place to capture a news story is largely a matter of chance for the phone-carrying masses, but these photojournalists travel for a story and use their contacts to get a head-start on their rivals. I wasn’t in the right place often this year, but I’d love to do more photojournalism.
4 April 2022. This photo of the baggage reclaim area of Manchester Airport illustrated a story on the Proper Manchester website.
19 Feburary 2022. It’s strange to think that there were still anti-lockdown protests in 2022 but this one of a policeman removing his mask to make his point happened back in Feburary.
30 August 2022. The bin strikes were one of the most visible manifestations of this year’s industrial unrest. What amazed me was how much junk food people eat.
1 May 2022. Protesters are always visually interesting, even when they are taking a rest from being on stilts by sitting on a bin.
11 September 2022. The big story of the year was the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Here was an example of the kind of images used to remember her.
Travel
This year, as of 23 December, I have run 35 Parkruns in 24 different locations, using Parkrun as an excuse to explore Scotland. I’ve visited Dumfries, Perth, Dunfermline, Cumbernauld, Arbroath, Lanark, and Prestopans; all these towns with their story to tell. Here are some photos from those daytrips plus a few from my holidays abroad.
4 June 2022. My favourite trip of the year was to Lanark, from which I cycled to Ian Hamilton Finlay’s extraordinary garden, Little Sparta, a total artwork encompassing sculpture, typography, philosophy, and nature.
4 June 2022. Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Apollon Terroriste in Little Sparta.
23 April 2022. Edinburgh Local Defence Volunteers seen recreating the look of WW2. I saw them after I had been to Meadowmill Parkrun.
10 September 2022. On the day I went to Perth to see Rachel MacLean I bumped into this man, Liam, who I had previously seen in Arbroath the day after Hanna Tuulikki’s bat rave (see Experiments below).
9 December 2022. The view from Erskine Bridge after Erskine Waterfront Parkrun.
2 April 2022. As well as doing lots of Parkruns, I went abroad three times. Once to Hurghada in Egypt …
… once to Spain (Granada and Bilbao). Here is the view near the Guggenheim. 19 August 2022.
… and once by train to Brussels to celebrate my birthday with Vanja and Rui. 15 June 2022.
Nature
For the city dweller, nature usually means seagulls and pigeons. Anything more exotic is incredibly exciting.
10 February 2022. The most exotic thing I saw all year were these spectacular Mandarin Ducks near Loch Lomond.
10 April 2022. A well-fed pigeon in a George Square flowerbed.
28 April 2022. A dog looking askance, thinking “if you only knew how bad things really were.”
25 September 2022. I learnt a new word this year: murmuration, which is when birds fly together. What do they know?
14 August 2022. The traditional photo of Laura greeting the donkeys in her grandmother’s farm.
People
A photograph of a person, particularly when they know that you’re taking it, are the most interesting kind of photograph for me. You really encounter not only the person, but also your relationship to them at that moment.
This year I really got into pool and insisted on finding a pub in Arbroath with a pool table. We found St Thomas Bar and I had a close game with the drunk man on the right.
27 July 2022. What a joy it was to spend a month in Mairena with Kia. Here is Magnus directing everyone for the group photo.
11 June 2022. Rain, wind or shine myself and Ellie would make it along to the Parkrun. Here she is at the inaugural Elder Park Parkrun, surely the flattest of all the Parkruns in Glasgow.
29 October 2022. I didn’t do as much hiking as I would have liked in 2022, but we made it up Tinto and to feel like we’d earned a pint.
15 December 2022. Ewan Morrison preparing himself for his portrait.
30 September 2022. I like the idea of updating my profile picture every year. This self-portrait was taken when I was bored in the bath.
Experiments
Partly inspired by Alasdair Dimmick, I have been playing with double exposures. A whistlestop tour of Arbroath led to these images, created with the Mixar app.
A cat near the coast, plus Hanna Tuulikki and Tommy Perman's bat rave at Hospitalfield
Art World
I love the freedom of the art world. Artists don’t have clients, they have obsessions. There may be trends in the art world, but rarely do I feel they constrain the artists. The following photos come from attending various performances and shows this year.
3 September 2022. Elina Bry’s performance and exhibition at French St was the total artwork of Betty the humanoid strawberry. I can’t wait to see what they do next.
4 November 2022. From strawberries to cigarettes. Emily Furneaux’s stories about memorable cigarettes she smoked at the CCA was intense. This was one of the calmer moments.
5 November 2022. Alice Peacock and Flow Eaglesfield’s performance involved wearing bread masks and making dough babies. I felt myself transported into an alternate bread-based reality.
Kate Clayton hosted Duncan McLaren’s On Kawara exhibition in her close in Dennistoun. I was on hand to document and particularly like this photo of Peter McCaughey.
28 October 2022. I’d never take a photo during a theatrical performance, but the moment the standing ovation starts I’ll take a quick snap. I love this one of Ivor Macaskill receiving an outpouring of love for his and Rosana Cade’s Making of Pinocchio.
18 June 2022. Seeing the most famous painting in the world is an incredible experience if you want to understand what it means to live in a spectacular society.
Glasgow
I was going to have a miscellaneous category, but it turns out they were all taken in Glasgow, so let’s call the category ‘Glasgow’.
06 October 2022. I used this autumnal photo of Glasgow Green to illustrate one of my most popular posts on expansion and contraction.
26 June 2022. The word ‘Glasgow’ means ‘dear green place’. This is the state of Paddy’s Market after a couple of years of neglect.
6 November 2022. A cropped version of this photo was my most popular tweet of the year, with 320,000+ views, 3,000+ likes and 300+ retweets. Always something happening in Glasgow.
26 September 2022. Taken as an oblique marriage congratulation for Rhodri and Susannah. Rhodri previously wrote a book on Drunk Furniture.
22 November 2022. Glasgow has become a frequent movie stand-in for American cities and, some days, it’s not difficult to see why.
5 October 2022. On a placid autumn day, Victorian engineering is nothing if not regular especially compared to the trees.
What is your favourite? Let me know in the comments below.
Lovely pics Neil! And congrats on (nearly) completing your year-long challenge - quite an achievement! xx
My two favourite photos : the Brussels sky in June …. and Laura greeting the donkeys in August.
I enjoy looking at all the photos !