2021 Project - 12 Significant Photos - January Update

January has been a long old month this year with the 3rd lockdown and some pretty awful weather. Lots of grey skies and rain. However I have been staying positive and looking forward to better times and weather ahead.

One high point of the month was attending a webinar with Chris Sale ( https://chrissale.co.uk/wp/ ), Chris is someone who I find really inspiring and I really enjoyed having a 1-2-1 session with Chris when we were in the Lake District in September last year. The webinar was centred around Chris’ plans for a photo project for 2021. At the end of the webinar Chris challenged us to join him in his #12in12photochallenge. The aim is to pick 12 locations in your local area and visit each during each of the 4 seasons through the year to capture how the areas change through the seasons.

After some deliberation I came up with my 12 locations. Living on the Island makes defining the area quite easy, I’ve incorporated the whole Island. There was some debate in the household over what local means in the current lockdown situation, and I've currently focused more on the locations I can walk too from the house, with the others to be added once lockdown is lifted.

All the locations are either spots I haven’t been too before, or they are locations I have visited but never got an image I am happy with from (Bembridge Lifeboat Station, I am looking at you!) So I am hoping visiting through the year will help to remedy that.

These are my 12 locations, the yellow pins are those I have already visited for the project and the orange ones are still be be captured as part of the project.

So how has January gone? Well pretty mixed! At the start of the year we had some amazing conditions but most of January has been grey and uninspiring. However these are the spots I have managed to visit and the images I got.

1) The Pepperpot

Or St. Catherines Oratory if you must! This is one of those locations I have photographed before but I’ve never been happy with the images I have achieved. A freezing fog on this morning meant the whole area was covered in a hoar frost and a freezing walk up from the Blackgang Car park was rewarded with amazing conditions. This image was captured as the cloud lifted and the view across the west of the Island revealed itself.

2) Ventnor Esplanade

My second location is Ventnor esplanade. On a freezing morning we went for a walk on the beach and the cloud was hanging over the top of the hill above the town. I captured this image from the end of the breakwater. The light was very harsh from behind me so I have edited this in Black and White to make use of the contrast in the scene. Ventnor is a proper seaside resort on the South coast of the Island so it will be interesting to capture this as it wakes up from Winter ready for the tourist season and in full summer.

3) Firestone Copse

Firestone Copse is a local woodland owned and managed by the Forest Commission. It is not a particularly photogenic woodland but there are pockets of really interesting spots. On a foggy mid January morning I was able to get out for a wander round the woods and found a spot that I hadn’t been too before. It has a really interesting mix of trees and slightly more open feel to a lot of the woodland. On another visit at the end of January I noticed the start of bluebell shoots appearing so Spring looks like it will be lovely in this corner of the wood.

So after a really positive start to the project things turned….. grey! The second half of January has been nothing but grey skies and rain. We all forgot what the sun looked like and the paths in the local area turned into impassable quagmires. We even had someone get stuck in the mud in the field just outside the village that required the fire service to help extricate them. Despite this I have still got out (carefully) and ticked off another couple of locations.

4) Ashey Station

This is the most local location to me and is a small rural station. Previously a station on the Ryde to Newport railway before the closure of the line it is now part of the Isle of Wight Steam Railway and its lovely to see the train steam through in the summer. I think it is fair to say that my first attempt to capture the scene did not go well. I was very uninspired by the conditions and just couldn’t find a composition I was happy with. I ended up taking something I view as more of snapshot. This is certainly going to be an interesting challenge to unlock the potential of the location during the year.

5) Ashey Lone Tree

The final location I visited in January was this tree in Ashey, again an easy walk from the house - although trying to find firm ground was a challenge. This is going to be another interesting challenge as trying to isolate the tree is going to be interesting as in each direction there is something unappealing that gets included. This might be one to try with my new 100-400mm telephoto lease that I have treated myself too and see if I can isolate it from further away.

So that rounds up January. I’ve continued the progress in February and have captured one image I’m quite pleased with. Check back at the start of March for my February round up for that image (or you may have already spotted it on Instagram).

Thanks

Chris

Landscape Photography by Christopher Cockroft, based on the Isle of Wight

2021 Project - 12 Significant Photos - January Update