I promise, this isn’t going to be another “let’s look back at 2020” blog post – mostly because I didn’t take many photos in 2020, a trend that seems to have dogged me for the past few years.
I’ve always had a place to write. During my teenage years, it was Livejournal, then Blogspot, then Tumblr, and now WordPress and occasional articles for Casual Photophile. The content has (thankfully) matured from teenage whinging to sporadic thoughts on photography, reviews and how-to articles. I started writing for Casual Photophile in October 2018, and have produced a frankly shameful number of pieces since then. However, I enjoy being part of a diverse and thoughtful team of writers – CP is one of the more interesting photography sites I’ve found (and I’m not just being biased, honest) because the writers aren’t afraid to put something of themselves into their work – something that’s usually missing from dry gear reviews.
Here are a few of my articles from the last couple of years, and I hope I can get back in the saddle somewhat in 2021.
My first article, on shooting a 6-month DIY solargraph. Timely, as just this week I installed a Solarcan on the guttering of our new house.
Where have all the high ISO colour films gone? A question I keep returning to, as a lover of colour film. With the recent reintroduction of Ektachrome, maybe we’ll see a few more old favourites returning in future.
A beginner’s guide to free-lensing. A how-to on one of my favourite techniques, and still my favourite way to use up a few frames at the end of a roll.
All the Kolors of the rainbow. One of the pieces I’m most proud of, in it I explore both the Kolor rainbow film stock, and my musings on being part of the LGBTQ+ community, in a year when we couldn’t have our traditional Pride event together. In this I tried to share something of myself, and kind-of succeeded.
I have a few ideas for 2021’s articles, and if you have a spare half an hour, you could do much worse than reading Casual Photophile’s Top 10 Most Popular Posts in 2020. All the best, and keep shooting x