2014bestcollage-1

Like all years 2014 had its negatives and its positives – thankfully many more positives.

Lets get the negatives over first. Apart from a few minor incidents (e.g. I fell while walking in the woods, hit a tree root and split my nose open. The worst of it was that I had to walk a further 30 minutes back to the car with a profusely bleeding nose) there weren’t many. The most traumatic event of the year was the loss of of beloved dog, Jackson on 30 October – to kidney failure after a thankfully brief illness. We still miss him. The very same day, in fact just as I was bringing Jackson’s remains back from the vet, our faithful 16 year old Toyota gave up the ghost. The engine’s shot and it’s not worth paying to get it fixed.

Although the loss of Jackson hurt we quickly found another dog: Harley. He’s adorable and has fitted in very well. In fact I feel a little guilty about the way in which he has taken Jackson’s place in our affections (it doesn’t help that he’s also a terrier and in many ways resembles Jackson). It’s almost as if we’re betraying Jackson’s memory.

On the photographic front it was a good year. I’m getting out more and taking more pictures. Comparing my 2014 favorite pictures to 2013 favorites I find that I prefer 2014 so hopefully I’m improving. I’ve made significant improvements in my post-processing and scanning technique. I’ve managed to update the blog frequently and it passed 500 posts in December. After I gave my Panasonic ZS-7 to my granddaughter I felt the need for a carry everywhere camera so I got a used Sony RX100 early in 2014. It’s a great camera and I almost always have it with me. It’s amazing what you miss through not having a camera with you. Many of my favorite 2014 pictures were taken with this camera. I still use my Sony Nex 5n a lot. I like using legacy lenses with it. My camera collection continues to grow, allbeit at a slower pace than before. This is partly because I’m not seeing as much that I want as before (and some of what I want is too expensive for me) and partly because I’d like to spend more time using them than buying them. My knowledge of all things photographic e.g. photo taking; photographers; cameras etc.) continues to expand as I read more and more, visit exhibitions (Winogrand and Salgado most recently).

So all in all a pretty good year. Let’s hope that 2015 is just as good.

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