New Year, and the first magazine feature of 2016 in Amateur Photographer Magazine on 16th January…
I’ve steadily been able to build up a small reputation online to the point that I now get invited occasionally to provide photographs and some written pieces for magazines and other media to use, as is demonstrated elsewhere on my blog. But this week something rather unusual happened, something I was neither expecting or planned in any way, somehow I managed to land two cover photographs on two different magazines at the same time.
Following another invitation from Amateur Photographer, I’ve completed another article for the magazine, this time on infrared photography. Best of all I’ve landed my second cover in a month with Refuge, one of my absolute favourites from 2014.
I was beside myself with excitement a few days ago when this dropped through my door because it’s finally happened – my first magazine cover ever, and it’s certainly a nice one from my point of view too. When Steve Watkins, editor of Outdoor Photography, asked me to write the June Learning Zone feature piece for this edition, he neglected to mention that the cover image might be in the offing too…
It’s like waiting for buses to come along. Just at the point where I barely produce a mono photograph, in January I featured in Black+White Photography Magazine for the first time and lightning has struck again with the May edition…
In the last couple of months quite a few of my small ambitions have come to fruition. I’ve appeared in Black+White Photography magazine (in the same issue as Michael Kenna no less!), Outdoor Photography magazine (with more to come there too), I was even filmed by Practical Photography of course, something which was an experience all of its own! Now, just in time for my birthday, a rather extensive interview feature has been published by On Landscape which fulfills another long-held ambition.
In January I featured in Black+White Photography Magazine, fulfilling a long standing ambition. Getting into such publications is important (to me anyway) because they are at the quality end of the magazine stand and so it goes it’s something of a subconscious stamp of approval for your endeavour. It was the start of a fair amount of interest I’ve had so far this year. Things definitely stepped up heavily following my relative success in Landscape Photographer Of The Year 2014 so I was very pleased indeed when Steve Watkins, editor of Outdoor Photography, asked me to write their regular Lie Of The Land piece for the April edition. Outdoor Photography are another I put in the same bracket as Black+White Photography, so it was great not just to be asked for a photograph but to write something too.
In January Practical Photography Magazine contacted me and asked if I’d be interested in completing a video shoot which would be used on the magazine’s cover disc and website. It’s not something I’d done before so I thought it might be a genuinely interesting experience and I agreed. Having run my own workshops previously, you can’t be a shrinking violet in these situations so I figured it would probably be OK.
I’ve been asked for quite a few images from Amateur Photographer to date, most notably with my Wild Wood Feature last October (watch out for another coming up again soon) so I was pleased to be asked to supply an image which would be used to demonstrate how to “avoid the cliches” as part of their “12 New Year Projects” feature…
I’ve spent a bit of time reconnecting with some mono work lately, especially since I started shooting some night scenes with the Nikon Df. I used to spend a lot more time with black & white than I have done this year and in the process I often looked in awe at Black+White Photography magazine for inspiration. It’s a very cool and elegant title indeed, a volume of genuine distinction and quality, in my view a cut above many of the other monthlies you’ll find it nestling amongst on the shelves of WH Smith. It’s been a long held ambition of mine to get something between the covers and in truth I’d all but given up that it was going to happen.
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