Virus Lockdown: My Final Images?

It’s day one of the UK coronavirus COVID-19 lockdown. Tuesday, March 24. And before I say anything else, I want to take the opportunity to send good wishes to all of the generous supporters of my YouTube channel and readers of this website. I sincerely hope that you and yours come through these difficult times unscathed. Let’s hope we can all get back to normal sooner rather than later. And for those of you working in the various essential services across the country you have my undying respect and gratitude.

Now, I’ve been giving some thought over the last few days, as it became apparent that we would end up with some pretty strict regulations about movement, as to how to carry on with my landscape photography. Since so much of the landscape is now off-limits.

I’ve seen it written, and heard it said, that visiting mountains allow you to remain isolated. Well, I won’t be doing that whilst the lockdown is in place for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s not really in the spirit of the regulations to try and claim that hiking for photography purposes is part of my daily health regime. Secondly, and frankly more importantly as far as I’m concerned, is that if I was out in the hills and got into difficulty why should I expect the amazing Mountain Rescue organisations to put themselves at risk on my behalf? They also need to remain isolated for their benefit and their families benefits. So I’d say to you, if you’re thinking of hiking in wilderness areas in the UK at the moment, please don’t do it. There is no need, the mountains will still be there when you are not restricted from visiting, it’s now time for us all to think of others and pull together to get through this.

So, to something slightly more positive: the regulations announced yesterday are very clear that you are allowed out of your house to undertake exercise. Now many of you will have seen on my videos the location of my home and the 80 acre lake which I fish and photograph pretty regularly. But you probably didn’t know that long before Coronavirus came along my daily exercise was either to walk around the lake which is just over a couple of miles, or other circular walks from my front door usually up to about 3 or 4 miles. And of course, I’ve usually got a camera with me of some sort. Some of the pictures on my blog have been taken on these walks, but up to now I haven’t  made videos, because it’s been a case of zipping around at pace for health purposes. So I got to thinking that if I was to carry a camera and tripod and a couple of extra bits and pieces I’ll be using more calories! So it will be even healthier! And I think I can probably get away with stopping for five or 10 minutes here and there to take a picture, video the process and share it with you.

Of course, don’t think for one moment it isn’t lost on me that you might be watching and thinking “oh he’s just having it easy because he lives somewhere like that”. But really all I’m looking to do is to carry on providing value to the people that generously support my channel, carry on with hopefully sharing new photo tips and processes, and perhaps some inspiration of photography that you can do while you’re out on your daily exercise allowance or in your immediate locality while still remaining isolated. I’ve worked very hard for many years to put myself in a position where I can run my business from this location, there have been sacrifices and I’ve had to seize quite risky opportunities to be able to live here. So it just seems to me that it’s hopefully something that I can now draw upon to be able to carry on providing something to hopefully entertain you in these dark times.

Finally just to say that the sort of video so I’m going to be producing will be nothing like my usual content, they will be quick and with very limited B roll. And I don’t intend bend the rules about exercise if I stop for five or 10 minutes when I’m on a walk to very quickly video and image or two that’s all I’m going to be doing and so when I put these together in my series which I’m going to call “Lockdown Diaries”, perhaps I might also talk a little about other things that aren’t necessarily only photography. Now because these are going to be pretty quick and easy, they won’t necessarily be every single day but I’ll certainly be pretty regular.

So do feel free to contact me maybe asked me to cover certain things that you’d like to learn, and if I can do it within the context of not travelling more than 2 miles from my front door on foot, or do something in the studio I’ll be happy to take some ideas.

So look out for the next video which will be coming soon.