Always hard to look back on the year and summarise everything that happened photographically. Some people do a sort of location centric list (all those fab countries they visited), others more about their professional or award achievements (assuming they pay to enter all those competitions, which I don’t!) and others just show what they think are their best shots. Although I was shooting in UK, Spain, USA and Australia (of course – Vic, SA, ACT, NSW) I think I will just have to do a simple chronology that captures other things like exhibitions and my workshops, focusing on shots that perhaps show my photographic evolution over the year, or captured a particular phase of it. In any event showing only a handful of shots is gonna be hard. Off we go.

January & February

Alongside running start of year workshops including as Intro to Landscape Photography, Waterfalls and Astrophotography I started as I do every new year, exploring lesser know regions of the northern Grose Valley, plus I had some wonderful misty sunburst mornings locally and began a long series of high resolution 360 Photos of the Blue Mountains – here is a page on this site with a growing selection. This is of course alongside the usual daily sunrises and sunsets in the greater Blue Mountains area. 

Dawn on New Years Day 2016 at my local rock

 

Pumping Waterfalls in early January

Danielle and Nik catch some rays on my Intro to Landscape Photography Workshop

Speaking of Rays – had some amazing mornings of forest light close to home

March & April

My astrophotography and autumn workshops were extremely popular this year. As the Milky Way begins to fill the southern skies and as the deciduous plants in Blackheath and Mt Wilson turn to warm colours I ran over 10 workshops in this period. Also some photo camping on the edges of the Wollemi, several amazing misty sunrise shoots and some major upgrades to my physical gallery made this a full two months. 

Appear every 3 months on the cover and have a page on top photo spots in the area in a few tourist mags.

Early Autumn is a great time for good sunset skies. Here at Dhurabulla

Two of three participants on one of my astro workshops. High up on Hassans Walls

and the sunrises in early Autumn are pretty good too!

Upgraded and updated my weekend gallery near Mount Victoria’s Pulpit Rock

and snapped on one of my Autumn Colour workshops – this one in Blackheath

one of several Autumn workshops – four participants in action in Mount Wilson

Running workshops allows me to explore different aspects of common locations

May & June

Punctuated by a three week photo trip specifically around San Diego, Alabama Hills, Yosemite and San Francisco the period also included some processing workshops, a few chilly astro workshops and several camping shoots at local bucket list locations such as Goochs Crater and Newnes Plateau (Gardens of Stone). A whistle stop trip to Newcastle and Mackay were also nice coastal breaks, preparing 20 plus images for permanent display at the Fairmont Resort and the last of the deep autumn colours in early May saw two more final workshops plus the usual licensing to publications, including Nat Geo Spain.

Astro workshops extended into early May before it got too cold

endless blazing sunrises at this time of year, this one another from Govetts…

Overnighting at the mysterious Goochs Crater

A permanent exhibition begins at the Fairmont Resort

Front of Nat Geo Spain

The annual shoot at Vivid Sydney, the worlds largest city light display.

A SW USA trip – and a fave area, Alabama Hills sunset on the way up to Yosemite..

Never have enough time in Yosemite Valley especially mornings like this, but explored a lot more areas this time up around Tuolumne Meadows too

What Yosemite is all about, a young deer and the big falls and no one else around just after sunrise

July and August

San Fran and back down to Los Angeles followed by family issues saw several trips to the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia – based in McLaren Vale shoots up and down the coastline there and on one occasion a long route back via the Snowy Mountains and three camping evenings resulted in a flu that lasted over two months! Also a ramp up in high rez 360 imagery using 8mm lens and dedicated stitching software (follow my Blue Mountains VR Facebook page), a few snowy Blue Mountain shoot days and more renovation of my physical gallery.

Some long wanders around San Fran and lucky to also shoot the Gay Pride parade before leaving.

The obligatory trip back down via the Big Sur complete with Trump supporter

Exploring more favourite off beaten track spots on Newnes Plateau

Constant interest in mono and one of my favourite falls, Bridal Veil in Leura

A glorious sunrise on the Range above McLaren Vale

A few days in the snow around Thredbo, camping in minus temps and 100km winds, not ideal.

Back to lovely warm sunrises, relatively speaking, here from Narrow Neck into the Jamison

Endless sunrises – this one the morning after a rather chilly all night astro workshop!

A long cold winter this year, but meant nice clear skies for astro snaps, here at my local Pulpit Rock.

September and October

Due to a long flu this was an exploration period finding new locations in Grose Valley, Kanangra, Newnes Plateau, Goulborn and Canberra region combined with daily 360 shoots at more regular locations. Also asked to present/workshop at several places such as Canberra on Virtual Reality and a keynote on printing (yes I know?!) for the APS in Adelaide meant another opportunity to shoot around the sunset coast near McLaren Vale. And the Waratahs came out late October.

Bush bashing and new angles into the Grose Valley

Finding new angles around Kanangra Walls and the wonderful falls through the spires here

Never ending sunrises over the Grose Valley…

An always go to spot when shooting around McLaren Vale in South Australia – Port Willunga old jetty

Revisiting old haunts, affords new takes. Cave in Wentworth Falls area

Relatively new Sony 90mm G lens brings Waratahs alive.

November and December

Lucky to be invited as part of a ambassador (the real political one not those photo influencer things!) trip for Australian thought leaders in interesting innovative parts of Spain – these three weeks also allowed a side trip to UK to do family and a few photo shoots in the Peak District and some of the literary parts of northern and southern england, namely Bronte and Agatha Christie country. Alongside lots of online print orders, calendars and readying for exhibitions another two week trip to South Australia brought a few surprises and a sad (personal family death) end to the year. 

Going back to the UK after a few years provides a different perspective to when one lives there – perhaps more towards the postcard’ness?

Wonderful storm clouds over Madrid for a few days. Provided some dramatic shots. Here at the royal palace

A few side trips, here at the amazing aqueduct in Segovia.

Had to do some sneaky hiking to find this angle just asking for a mono treatment, Segovia again

Always hard creating a calendar of only 13 images from the year or so, made it a little easier with 25!

Back in London and staying next to Kensington Gardens allowed some lovely sunrise opps

Back in the Blue Mountains and a misty end to the year, complete with passing Black Cockatoos

Showing a visiting photographer a few spots one morning in late November allowed me to re-capture this fave composition…

Treated to a lovely sunset at Port Noarlunga Pier on XMas day.

and an even bigger treat, a little sky fireworks above Port Willunga Jetty before Xmas!

So thanks for getting this far and for following me on Facebook (crept up to 17 000) and Instagram (sneaked up to 27 000) amongst other social sites and look forward to perhaps seeing you on one of my workshops or in the comments on my sites or just liking some of my pretty snaps. Have a great New Year, over and out for now…oh apart from this little selfie taken at 5.15am dawn on New Years Day…

Happy New Year from the Blue Mountains.