Blog #26 - Half a Year of Writing About My Own Mess and Calling it a Blog

Six months of this. That surprised me when I counted the entries, because it never felt like I was building anything structured. It just carried on in the background while life moved around it. One week at a time. One post at a time. One small moment that felt worth writing down. I think that is the part that catches me now. I did not begin this with a plan for consistency and I certainly did not expect to still be here half a year later. Yet the blog has become something I return to almost automatically.

A place to sit with whatever I have been doing or feeling, then shape it into something that makes sense. It has turned into a habit without me ever intending it to.

When I read back over everything, I can see how the blog changed without any deliberate decision on my part. The early posts were mostly about gear and places. They were little snapshots of a person trying to make sense of cameras, lenses, settings, and the thrill of figuring out how something worked. I can see myself trying to sound like someone who has his photography in order, even though most of my time was spent staring into menus on the Sony wondering what I had just pressed. The tone starts out almost like a field report. Here is what I used. Here is where I went. Here is the thing I tried. Then something shifted, and the writing slowed down and became more honest. Not emotional or dramatic. Just more open.

By the time I hit the middle stretch of the blog, I was writing about why I buy old cameras when I am stressed, and how it somehow helps me feel steady for a bit.

I was writing about heavier weeks at work and the way Bow can pull me back into the present simply by asking why something is shaped the way it is. I was writing about moments that had nothing to do with photography, yet still ended up teaching me something about it. It is strange reading those posts now. They give a clearer picture of where my head was at than anything else I was doing at the time. I think I needed the space more than I wanted to admit.

Photography itself has taken a wandering path over these months, which I suppose fits me perfectly. At the start, I was trying to become the type of photographer who always has everything sorted, who'd you expect. The sort who turns up with the right kit, the right ideas, and a backup battery that actually exists in real life instead of in theory. That version of me lasted about a week before real life stepped in. The truth is that most of my photos come from days where nothing was planned. A quick stop near home. A walk after lunch. Twenty minutes before a shift. A test roll before the light disappears. It turns out that showing up with whatever I have, and whatever energy I have that day, is enough. The blog became proof of that lesson. So many of the posts came from days that were never supposed to be worth photographing, yet they ended up shaping the whole thing.

One of the biggest shifts came from film. I did not expect that at all. The Olympus OM1n was meant to be a small nudge to get my dad to dust off his old Fujica. Instead it opened a door that has taken up an entire shelf (or three) in the hobby room. That first roll surprised me. The Fujica ST701 surprised me even more, mainly because the meter did not work, the focus was unpredictable, and yet I still wandered around feeling like I had discovered something completely new. Film made me slow down in a way I did not know I needed. There was no rattling off twenty shots of the same plant. No LCD to fix my mistakes. No pressure to make anything perfect. I took photos, hoped for the best, and accepted whatever came back. That acceptance alone has probably been the most useful part of my photography this year.

Then came the 120 cameras.

The Voigtländer Brilliant TL, the Zeiss Ikonta, the scans with vertical lines that made me briefly question whether I had angered some sort of photography deity. Even those moments feel important now. They show how willing I was to try things, fail at them, and try again without turning it into a crisis. Somewhere along the way I stopped needing everything to look polished. I had frames of garden sheds, allotment roses, spiderwebs on locked gates, and even a mirror selfie I did not plan, yet all of it felt like small proof that the camera was doing its job. It was helping me pay attention.

Home development was the next curveball. One week I was sending rolls off to labs at £X amount of pounds a reel (In case Emma is reading)! The next I was stood in the hobby room with a Paterson tank, a dark bag, a bottle of developer, and the faint concern that I might stain the carpet permanently. I rushed a roll of HP5 through the Olympus on the morning of my rugby shifts, then paused the rest of life to stand in a dark bag wrestling the film onto the reel like a man trying to put a duvet cover back on. The first roll came out better than it had any right to, and it reminded me of the simple pleasure of making something from start to finish. The sort of task where your hands do the work and your mind gets a short break from itself. I did not predict that either, yet it has become one of the small highlights of this half year.

Looking through the archive now, it feels like a scrapbook rather than a blog. The quiet days at Attenborough. The summer heat at Staunton Harold when the water dropped so low it revealed cracked ground and that strange green moss that looked almost painted on. The Bradgate walk where Bow insisted on counting every single tree root. The allotment visits where I somehow always ended up photographing plants I did not plant. The trips into town. The C3 Arts event where I found myself in the middle of lights, paintings, and conversations I was not expecting to have.

The drone sessions in the fields near home where I kept glancing around just in case someone thought I was spying on their shed.

The Weekly Prime challenge that kept me picking up the camera even on the days where I felt like doing nothing. It all adds up in a way I did not see happening at the time.

The blog also helped me notice how photography and mental health sit closer together than I ever realised. On hard weeks, the posts read like someone looking for one steady moment. A frame of water, a quiet path, a scene with no noise in it. On good weeks, they read more like small celebrations. Nothing big. Just a sense that something went well and I wanted to keep it. The camera became a tool for paying attention. Not in a poetic way, just in a very practical sense. Looking through a viewfinder stops me drifting off and pulls me into the room I am actually in. It slows things down. That is probably why I kept writing. It gave the experience somewhere to land.

Then there is the bit I still find odd. People started responding. Comments, messages, tiny conversations about cameras, parenting, old lenses, anxiety, and the strange comfort of learning something publicly. I never thought anyone would care what I had to say about a Fujica with a broken meter or a wandering day out at Foxton Locks, yet somehow it connected. I think the honesty mattered more than the photography. People recognised themselves in the mistakes, the small wins, the curiosity, the messiness. The blog built a community without me planning for one. That still surprises me every time I think about it.

Six months in, the blog feels less like a tidy project and more like a record of gradual growth. Not dramatic transformation. Slow and steady movement. A man trying to understand why he loves cameras. A dad sharing small days out with his daughter. A person working through the noise of work, health, adult life, and everything else, while holding onto something that brings a bit of calm. I keep returning to the same themes without trying to force them. Curiosity. Family. Learning. Mistakes. Presence. And the strange, comforting satisfaction that comes from noticing things other people overlook.

I am not sure what the next six months will bring. Probably more film experiments. More days where I forget a memory card. More photos of Bow walking ahead of me pointing at something only she can see.

More shots of Emma laughing at the state of my camera bag. More late night writing sessions after work, sitting in the car with the Notes app open and a cup of something lukewarm beside me. More learning. More mistakes. More stories. I hope it stays that simple. The blog works because it gives me somewhere to reflect without pretending to have anything sorted. It lets me look back and see that even when life felt heavy, I still noticed something worth keeping.

Six months. Twenty six posts. A growing archive of memories, learning curves, and small moments that would have vanished if I had not written them down. I am proud of that. Not because it is perfect or impressive, but because it is real. It shows a version of life I might have forgotten otherwise. And that alone feels like a good enough reason to carry on.