My 2023 Round Up
Coming to the end of the year, it’s usually a time for reflection for us all and I love to look back and remind myself of all the things I’m grateful for.
Wow - This years been quite a ride!
We’ve completed all the seasons in hymie and are currently in our 2nd winter. The start of the year was hard, I’m not going to lie! Regular frost on the insides of the windows was a challenge, resorting to wearing hoodies at night to keep all wrapped up. It was a learning experience I can tell you! We also lost Ady our cat early in the year, which was a difficult time. She was 16 and was with us all the time on this crazy adventure so definitely felt the void in her absence. But we know she had the best life and what an adventure the last year was!
Its not all doom and gloom though! We needed some light and warmth so headed out to Kas in Turkey and spent a couple of weeks exploring, enjoying being somewhere new with our friend, James. Ahead of the trip I’d pitched to a couple of brands about collaborating so it meant that whilst taking in some sunshine, I also got to shoot some paid work which was amazing! 2 of those were for Ocean Bottle and Feelgrounds. They steadily became my best clients of the year, shooting several campaigns for them as the year went on. My brand/lifestyle work really continued with a boom - we’ve had such a blast this year - some come with briefs and some no briefs at all and the creativity certainly flowed!
Early in the year, I ran some Dorset based landscape workshops both on my own and with fellow photographer Jack Lodge. All of these were ace and I always have a great time shooting with others who share a passion for photography. I love sharing my experience and knowledge and just taking people out to try something new, or hone some techniques, or even just pick up some tips at a new location! There is always something different to be done or to shoot so with some workshops planned for this January & February I’m hoping for more of the same please!
Other highlights of the year moving into spring and summer was definitely getting to explore more of Wales and Cornwall. As soon as we got back from Turkey the weather improved here in the UK, warmer days, longer evenings. Its the time of year that gets me excited for new adventures! Getting to travel around the UK with my weddings and brands this year has been incredible. Its taken us from one end of the country to another!
Being an ambassador for Fujifilm has been one of my biggest highlights. I’ve worked with them on content and talks plus other things. Its taken me to The Photography Show and Wales and West Photo Show, as well as camera centre open days being able to join the team in meeting people and getting to stand up on stages talking about what I do! Coming from a place of having a big fear of public speaking, even I’m amazed at how far I’ve come! I’ve also embarked on a relationship with Aquatech who provide my water housing and we have some epic plans for next year so super excited to see where this leads. Through this collaboration ‘Iconic Views’ project began. This will be an ongoing project to capture those familiar scenes and landmarks but from the water…. you can keep up to date and see how this is going here. Who knows where this will extend to next year…. even I dont know, so thats quite exciting! A personal project is always important and I like to flow rather than have a set plan, so lets see what happens there!
Travelling around the country, we sometimes wild camp, sometimes campsites and sometimes get to stay at venues. 2023 was the year we discovered our favourite campsite of all time - Burnbake, in Studland, Dorset. Set in nature but with all the facilities you truly get the best of both worlds, and the location is one of the best places to be in England (in my opinion!) - I’ve created content for them whilst staying and I’ve loved it. I really can’t wait to get back when they re-open for the ‘24 season! I must say whilst writing this part, whilst moving around the UK, we can quite often be found looking on Pitchup.com when needing a last min campsite and I can tell you we tried a few cheapies across the summer. The weirdest must be an out of school holiday stay at a Theme Park, it was like a post apocalyptic world. Weird! Gullivers World if anyone wants to check it out - you can thank me later haha.
Early Summer I had a call for a last minute photographer for the most amazing group of ocean rowing ladies - of course I jumped at the chance! I met up with Ocean Sheroes at Burnham on Crouch and spent the day alongside Dojo Films, creating content and documenting the day of their first meet up and row ahead of the Indian Ocean row in April ‘24. I’m looking forward to documenting more moments for them and supporting them in their adventure. Honestly, not only are they all such incredible, brave women but super lovely and we hit it off instantly. I get the best jobs!
Summer then led onto Festivals - this year we did The Magic Teapot Gathering, Elementary, Medicine and Lovejam Campout. All absolutely incredible and we have some treasured moments and experiences, with old friends and new. You never know where life is going to lead and being able to move from festival to festival is one of those magical things we can flow with, not being tied to a 9-5 or one specific location!
Autumn was glorious, checking out Savernake Forest for the first time and spending time in the ancient woodland with some BIG old trees. I shot alot of content there for a handful of brands. We spent a short amount of time in the Lake District - it was meant to be longer but the floods there delayed our start and cut that time down, then Carol fell and hurt her back too, so it definitely wasn’t meant to be much of an adventure this time - next time though! We also spent a fair amount of time at this point back on the south coast which made us realise how much we had been away through the year and how busy things had been.
Life gives us opportunities and we need to take them right? How many of us long for something different but rarely break that cycle? I’m not saying by everyone quit your jobs and take a gap year but what I am saying is if there’s something you’d rather be doing, a place you’d rather be, do it, go there! Life’s too short for what ifs.
So thanks for reading my round up of the year and my musings! There’s probably countless things I’ve forgotten in this moment and it will come back to me later haha - For now, on to 2024 and whatever that holds. I have some ideas and some goals I’d like to achieve but at the end of the day I want to be open to flow as you never know who or what may come into your life leading to new opportunities and experiences.
Whatever it holds for all of us - lets embrace the experience with open arms. I wish you all a happy and fullfilled ‘24 and want to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you. Thank you to everyone who supports me, collaborates with me, books on a workshop, buys a print, or even says something encouraging on social media. I thank you all.
Much love,
Emily x
