I’ve found myself contemplating a lot of things recently. Better than I have still not come up with answers. Who am I? What am I about? Where am I going?

Everything I know is from my past and the past is full of things I would rather not think about. Who has never made mistakes? We all have and the kicker is, we will all continue to make them in the future.

I am learning that you can’t keep living in the past. You have to move on. After all, we only have one life and regrets are not real. Regrets hold you back and stop you from being true to yourself.

All we can do is pick ourselves up, learn as best we can and move on.

I have found that I tend to fight ghosts from my past. These ghosts are all imagined, they don’t exist and they are my own brain holding me back. I now believe that some people are more a-tuned to this self sabotage.

All we can do is be honest with ourselves, leave the past behind us and grab today by trying to be a better version of ourselves than we were yesterday. Sounds easy right?

No, it’s bloody difficult and it takes determination and not punishing yourself for falling over every now and again. We are a biggest critic and it can sometimes cripple us.

All of these photos in this post are old images, some have never seen the light of day and they represent my past. My history, but they are a spring board my tomorrow. All of these shoots were learning points, lessons in the craft.

Until next time peeps.

It’s the new year, a new decade (depending on who you talk to), the usual new year resolutions, the half baked attempt at reinventing yourself to make you a better version of you. I used to think that it was the perfect opportunity to do just that…

I don’t any more.

What is 2020 going to bring to me? I don’t have a clue. It could be a terrible year or simply the best [in my best Tina Turner voice].

What do I know this year will bring? Well my livelihood will change as I enter my last possible annum in a career that has spanned almost two and a half decades. My contact runs out and I look for opportunity in the future. I am filled with trepidation and excitement. I no longer fear the future like I used to.

Photography and video [wow] has now been a part of my life for almost 20 years and I look forward in the real possibility that this will start to take more of a back seat. I will continue with some form of photography but possibly only for spiritual balance.

So the next twelve months will have their challenges, but one thing I have learned is that life is full of challenges and who can say which challenges will end up being more pivotal than any others? Often a challenge that can seem like a small ‘ride it out’ blip, can become the mother of all life changes and vice versa.

Does the new year really seem like the right time to make you a better you? No, I don’t think so. It’s almost a lazy approach. does that mean if things don’t work out, I must wait until Jan 2021 to readjust? Absolutely not! The proactive method for me, it to reflect almost daily on what you have achieved, what changes you are making and challenge yourself to be a better version of yourself today than you were yesterday. By doing this and being honest, you can make those small daily changes that will become big changes in time.

I won’t wish you all a happy new year, today, but I will wish you a better today than yesterday, and very day from now on…

The world is an amazing place for the most part, sure there is evil, but it is much rarer than you would think.  I think we all have the capacity for evil, as much as we all have the capacity for love too.

There are so many cultures in the world and they all seem to view things differently from their collective perspectives, usually from taught responses, that we should remain open to these different views.  It makes us more tolerant of others I think.

With this in mind, I had the opportunity to support our Gurkha soldiers as they celebrated with their families and colleagues the Hindu and Buddhist Dashain festival.

Billed as their cultural equivalent to our Christmas, to me by this community, it is essentially a great party, with dancing and food.

It is always great to see communities come together in this kind of party, the mood is excellent, the food was superb and the cultural influence was amazing in its colour and vibrancy.

One thing I did notice though, children are great levellers, as this Gurkha community is settled in the UK, so they become enthralled by the same influences as our own children.

Enjoy these photographs of the event.

I sit at my computer and contemplate the past year.  I won’t lie to you, it has been pretty horrible.  I try to be pragmatic about it all, I know there are many people who are worse off than me, there always will be.  There has been much soul searching, sleepless nights, anxiety, dark times.  There have also been some good times, as always, but I think the tendency during a retrospective is to see the bad times more clearly than the good.  Perhaps they leave a stronger imprint…

Photography has sadly been lacking for a big part of this year, although I do try to do the odd bit here and there.

One thing is certain though, this coming year, things have to change, priorities must alter if dreams and goals are to be attained.  So it’s time to start thinking with more clarity.  The new year, that fresh optimism that is injected, must be followed through with.  Distractions must be limited.

We live in a society that offers opportunity where others don’t, most of all though, I think we must start to believe in our own abilities.

More to come…

I’m back…