I was excited about my “A black/white picture of my boys every day in Janaury” challenge! The reality of doing it didn’t always feel particularly motivating, BUT let me tell you this - the final outcome is enough to make me look forward to next January!
As with all good January intentions everything starts off full of motivation, but inevitably everyday life sets in, and it does become harder to stick to your plan. I have seen other photographers produce the most beautiful set of images after these challenges and my expectations were high, so when my sky high ambitions began to dwindle into everyday “oh no I have forgotten to take a picture today, quickly do one” it wasn’t always a fantastic feeling. My expectations definitely lowered throughout the month, and I must admit I began looking forward to the end of the task. The end result is far more a set of snap shots, than a set of great art.
However, when I finally loaded all the images to go through them and collate them, I was blow away by the story I have created from a dark and somewhat uninspiring January. I have this amazing log of my boy’s activities, and I was thrilled to find there is a lot of just laughing and messing about in our family, much more that I realised… I love how it includes so many little details of toys, clothes, and activities they are into now.
There is something amazing about creating real images of my own family, as the perfect contrast to the idealistic work I create for customers.
I feel August could be a great time to do this challenge next… a month with lots of light would be a treat as well!
These are images personal to me, and I love the story they all tell, but I hope you might enjoy them too. Next job is to work out what format to print them in x
Evidently, this is my mum, but M is nearly in the corner, and I have no pictures of my mum, so I am sneaking this one in. We were in Denmark for New Years, so this is January 1st. I know this is the chair she sits and reads in every day, and she is smiling because she is watching the boys play on the WEE - I love everything about this picture.
We spend a lot of time in airports every year, the boys have traveled to Denmark with us since day one.
First day back from holiday the boys are always super busy rediscovering their own toys.
Coming home after first day back at school. This picture is quite random, but I have had a new car since, so I like the little memory of my old car!
M&S are always putting on shows that we have to sit and watch, this was one of those. M is wearing his crayon outfit that we made for world book day last year.
It was a hot chocolate and Toy Story 3 kind of day.

























The truth is...
The truth is I edited 66 images from this challenge, not 31... it was bound to happen, you can’t photograph two boys every day and ever only pick one image! Here are a few “bonus” images, because I did want some “proper” portrait images as well, I couldn’t entirely let go of my idealistic side, even for just 31 days 😉


