November

Every monthly review I’ve posted here this year has started with some sort of surprised exclamation that time is moving forwards at a never-ending pace. Indeed, it’s been so long I’m not sure how else to open a monthly review without commenting on the passage of time, as in the alternative I’d be unable to sit here writing this and you to sit there reading it; somehow I suspect that the end of all existence would be a bit more distracting. Still, for now, time continues, and by and large it probably will for a while yet, so let’s just concentrate on the tiny slither of existence that was November.

I’ve managed to keep up, by and large, with my Tuesday weekly posting schedule that I quietly implemented back in summer. The weekly schedule has shown itself to have both pros and cons; it’s nice to know when I have deadlines for posting and it keeps me on my toes, but it also has the problem that I sometimes feel pressured into rushing out a post that isn’t ready, or is a bit of a ‘filler’ post.

I opened November with Instagram #19, which one could argue is a case of the latter sort of post. When I originally decided to post it, I’d have probably agreed, but the day before I was due to post it I took a trip on the London Underground, which seems to be something I like to photograph, and as a result added five great shots to the mix for the post. Some of those were inspired by my friend Catherine’s trip to an abandoned tube station the month before, something I’d love to do. I’ve since taken a couple more tube trips and took a few photos so when Instagram #20 comes round there’ll almost certainly be more tube shots in it.

The following week I returned to posting images from my European road trip, and our visit to a war cemetery in the French countryside. I timed this post to be released on November 11th to coincide with Armistice Day, even going as far to schedule it for 11.02am, right after the two minute silence. Walking around the cemetery was a sombre experience and that I what I tried to capture in the photos I took. I used a lot of black and white and dark hues in the images, but I tried to keep colour in there as well as the white crosses (and stars) contrasted against the green. I’d have liked to do a better job capturing the rain that was there when we arrived, it doesn’t come across very well in the pictures I took.

I then broke out of my posting schedule a little to bring you a Friday post: Nancy. In order to keep my Europe tour posts from cluttering the lineup for months to come I might, from time to time, release them on Fridays. Nancy was the first because it contained less than a dozen images so could be a ‘light’ Friday post. Short as it was it contains some decent images, including some freehand HDR shots (I actually think I’ve still not taken a HDR bracket on a tripod, which how I’m supposed to do it). We didn’t spend a huge amount of time in Nancy – unless you count the time we were asleep – but it looked like a nice town we’d love to return to one day.

The tour photos continued in the next post as we hit Basel. I was a lot more in my stride taking pictures at that point so there was a lot more than there was in the Nancy post. It was a very pretty and interesting city but much like every other stop on our trip we only saw so much of it. It seems that my posts from the trip are pretty popular; tagging them as ‘travel photography’ has opened this blog up to a new audience, it seems, so welcome if you’re a new reader.

The last post of the month also broke my posting schedule, but mainly because it was late. I had fully intended to get Return to Swanage published on Tuesday, but thanks to my birthday I didn’t start editing the images fully until Monday (I did edit a few whilst away, but not many) and it was late on Tuesday, when I was already very pushed for time for wiring and was thinking I’d just wrapped up the editing, that I found another 100 photos I’d forgotten to import, which threw getting the post out on time out of the window. In the past when I’ve missed my Tuesday deadline I’ve just written it off and posted it the next week but decided I’d rather put it out late this time, partly because I was happy with the shots. It was a nice way to spend my 30th birthday and the images are ones I’ll probably get printed at some point down the line.

So that was November. What for December? My tour photos from Europe will continue to crop up, and I usually post an annual review during December too. I might also do some shooting too, as we’re heading to that part of the year where I get some nice long annual leave.

Thanks, as always, for reading.
Rob