My January challenge 2019

This is a personal project, and the second year I did the “A picture a day in January” challenge. If you haven’t already tried this, I highly recommend it!

So this year I tightened the brief a little bit, and set out to do both boys together (which didn’t always work out), in black and white and all on the 35mm lens (geeky input over!). I have a very narrow view of the world in my photography, which means I focus just on the boys, and filter out all the noise around – this basically makes everything look nice, neat and perfect! So in order to challenge this in my self I chose to go for this wider lens, to force more environment and more story telling, and I loved it! I had to embrace a lot more “imperfection” and this was very healthy for me to try, as my work does often sway towards the idealistic 🙂

The brutal truth is, I was a little bit less motivated and engaged with the challenge this year, possibly because January is a tough month for light, and I also did this challenge in August, which was a total dream! I also had a set back this year, my camera had to go in for repair, so I had to finish the challenge early. However, had I not been doing this challenge every day, I wouldn’t have noticed the change in the camera, so I’m super grateful that all my customer work was all good and safe (despite a super busy month). Ultimately I still love having this little image documentary of our month, and I will most definitely do this again in August and next January.

Anyway, this is all for me, more than for anyone else, but I do hope it might inspire you to do the same project for your children.

Once again we had the pleasure of starting the New Year in Denmark. A brand new mountain bike track has been created in the hills behind my parents house, so on the 1st of January we spent a lot of time carrying the bikes to the top so the boys could cycle down – Chris got a lot of exercise this day.

This is a place we go to often in Denmark, there are lots of water based activities, and S did fall in the water. It’s the second time he fell into that water but the first time it was summer, this time was winter and ice on the surface…

When we arrived back to the UK we went in to see progress at Grafton House. This is actually my new studio, and I know in the future this picture will trigger a lot of memories!

Christmas = LEGO at our house! The boys got this super cool LEGO set that they programme with the iPad, and a lot of hours was spent with this!

Photobombed by the cat…

I had lots of pictures from this day, I love them reading in bed with their teddies. Lots of time stamps in this for me, in terms of the books they are currently reading and also the teddies they choose. The same old faithful teddies they have had from birth are still there!

All of us playing football in the garden – given the option the would spend their entire life playing with us!

This was the day they first brought ukuleles home from school and played them like rock stars, they were mighty excited.

Love this happy little portrait of them together. Except I wouldn’t hang this on the wall, I struggle with the idea that one of them would for ever be up side down…

The motivation ran a bit low today, so this is what we got, after school snack in hand…

They are both super crafty, and I hope this lasts forever! They came home from school and M wanted to paint for a “make a rain forest” project at school.

For years they have loved putting on shows and we have to sit and watch, and today was a show day.

A rainy afternoon perfect for watching a film, with the fire on and bowls of crisps – happy family.

I arrive home after a shoot to find them flying the kite on top of the playhouse. I really want to replace that playhouse with a greenhouse, but climbing on a greenhouse could be a problem…

Yeah, this is kind of gross, but also kind of funny…

Wrapping a birthday present ready for going to a friends party after school tomorrow.

I forgot to take a picture and when I remembered they were sat in the corner close to the socket sharing one Kindle – tough life when no one charges the Kindle for you 😉 At least they are super good at sharing!