Usually I would say that winter is a pretty rubbish time for inspiration as far as my photography goes (its a bit better for my digital artwork thanks for the long, dark evenings, although that certainly doesnt show in my gallery). Sure, there can be some great things to photograph, such as beautiful frosty mornings, and (if we ever got it down here) snow, but these things generally involve either getting cold, which I can cope with, or getting up early in the morning, which I cant. So with my usual favorite subjects for random photography, flowers, all dead or looking incredibly boring, no winter trips abroad, and thanks for the cold weather my animals wanting to do nothing more than sleep, I wouldn't have expected to have taken many photos over the winters months. However, it seems inspiration can come from very unexpected places.

I'm not someone who has been taught how to work a camera properly, I just play with the settings until it does what I want it to do, and then attempt to find out why this has worked later. As a result, I had tended not to make as much use of my camera's macro function as I prehaps should have. However, one Saturday I took my camera up to my grans to show her some photos of the hedgehog I am looking after (long story), and I ended up heading out into her garden to see if there was anything I could take. I love her garden, so much grows there, and I have taken tons of photos there, but I wasnt expecting to find anything this time. However, she had what I assumed were Snowdrops growing (which I have later found out where Snowflakes), ended up experimenting with my camera, and ended up with a new love for the macro lens. So along came source of inspiration #1, suddenly everything became a potential subject for a macro shot. And yet more of my inspiration came from my grans garden. I would never have thought that dead plants could make good subjects, but ended up finding myself obsessively taking photos of a dead raspberry plant.

Then came a trip to Portsmouth which has resulted in what is currently my most favorited piece in my gallery, Fish Face. I have never attempted to take photos of fish before - as far as I was concerned there was no way I would be able to get a decent shot of one since they refuse to stay still, and have a nice piece of glass in the way. However, once inside the aquarium other people seemed to be taking photos, so I decided I might as well give it a go. Well I was right about a couple of things, they arent easy to photograph thanks to always being on the move, but the glass didnt end up as as much of a problem as I had anticipated. I ended up with some great shots, glass became less of an obsticle, and I gained a whole new group of subjects.

Next came Crufts. Not the easiest place to take photos, what with there being so many people around to knock into you just as you press the shutter (which ruined what would have been a great photo of a Newfoundland), to start stroking the dog, and generally distracting them when you have them in the perfect position, and fluorecent lighting, but a place with literally thousands of cute subjects. And it turned out to be a brilliant learning experience. I have learnt that taking photos of agility competitions when you are miles away from the subject and sat in strange light is impossible (I'm sure there is probably a way if you are clever, but I'm not). I learnt that I really should take a better look at my photos before getting carried away, then things like noise from a height ISO might not go unnoticed. And I learnt that patience really can pay off after returning to the same stand about 4 times to try and get a photo of a particular breed.

And things didnt stop there. I finally learnt how to do Colour Popping, which has opened up a whole other door when it comes to making something of photos I am not 100% happy with, and I am now in the process of learning how to use Ultra Fractal, so next time things go quiet I have another creative channel.

Things shows no sign of slowing down yet either, I'm off to London tomorrow, one of my favorite places to take photos, and before long all the flowers will be back again. So all in all, what should have been a quite few months when it comes to my gallery, have actually been very productive, and without having to get up in the early hours of the morning once.