New Site

Welcome!

Sorry about the brief outage on Monday night if you tried to access this site then, I was in the process of transferring over from Wix to Squarespace. That’s done now, and I hope you like the changes.

I’ve been noticing how many photographers are struggling at the moment. Not necessarily in terms of the financial impact of the pandemic, although I’m sure that must be the case for many. But in terms of a lack of inspiration and vision and purpose. And in terms of the struggle for visibility on social media and all the associated frustrations that brings.

And I can relate to that. I think all photographers want to know that are images are meaningful and worthwhile (probably because we want to feel worthwhile ourselves, that we matter), and to have a purpose in what we’re doing and to see it connecting with people.

And there’s the constant (for many of us) pressure of social media, to chase numbers. And because we can easily see the big numbers, the huge numbers that the famous YouTubers or Instagrammers have, it can seem like the small numbers don’t matter. How can it feel worthwhile to have 10 people respond to an image when another photographer has thousands.

So I want to see if I can help. I don’t think there are easy answers but I hope it’s something we can explore. Not to succeed on social media, at least not in the normal sense of building a large following. Because I don’t think that chasing fame is a positive or worthwhile exercise. But maybe success is figuring out how we can connect really well with a smaller audience, maybe a local audience for example, and serve them well. And I think part of that is re-discovering our creativity, not trying to follow what ‘works’ on Instagram and copying someone else’s style, but finding something unique to say that might matter, finding a story or perspective that hasn’t been seen yet.

So that’s partly why I’ve changed this site. I haven’t got it all figured out yet but I’ll start to share some ideas and opportunities soon. (And I’m sure I’ll still write about cameras sometimes too).

Let me know what you think, especially if you’re struggling with these kind of frustrations. I’d love to hear from you.

All the best,

Al