Where does the time go?  There is so much going on in my life right now that there’s barely time to stop and take photos of the roses.  January has been a total blur.  Post-Christmas means back to work and it also means spending some time working on the house to get it into a saleable state.

Photographically, January yielded three shoots; the first was Liverpool’s Transition party celebrating the end of the city’s year as the European Capital of Culture, the second was with the Wirral Flickr group at New Brighton, and the third was spent photographing the Chinese New Year celebrations in Liverpool’s Chinatown.

More recently, a couple of large organisations have expressed an interest in using some of my shots of the Transition celebrations.  And who said Flickr was only good for posting snaps and ego back slapping?

The first week of February has finally seen some decent snowfall in the UK including here in Liverpool although it’s not as thick as on the south and eastern parts of the UK.

It’s funny, as I was sat in a meeting room this morning discussing the technical intricacies of passing data between front end and back end systems, I couldn’t helping noticing the snow falling outside and thinking to myself,

I’ll bet there’s some fantastic photo opportunities out there today.

I enjoy my work, but photography goes a long way in helping to restore some equilibrium by taking me away from the technical architecture, coding standards, SSL certificates and search engine marketing campaigns.  It also makes for a great reason for Mrs & me to get away somewhere away from the routine of everyday life.

Spending the day photographing the Chinese New Year celebrations in Liverpool’s Chinatown was fun, challenging and frustrating.  It would have been good to have been able to apply the lessons learnt to the Manchester celebrations which took place yesterday, but the garden was crying out for attention and I could hardly leave others to heavy labour whilst I go off galavanting around Manchester.

It would have also been great to get out in the snow with a camera this evening, but instead I chose to sit in a room full of photographers!  One of the local Flickr groups is trying to put together an exhibition of work from individual members.  Not having had much interest in viewing art exhibitions in the past, I’m left wondering what to make of it when there’s a possibility of my own work being in an exhibition.  As I see it, the least I owe to myself is to find out more and see where I land.

Liverpool has been a central part of my life from the day I was born.  Well, not Liverpool per se, but its people have had such a profound impact on my life.  And despite the elements of Liverpool life I don’t regard in such good light, I can’t escape the significance the city has.  So when I’m looking at a photo of the sun rising over the Liverpool cityscape, I’m not just seeing buildings, water and colour; I’m seeing every single person who has been a part of my life.  This is what Liverpool means to me.  Whether or not this is something I can convey through images and whether or not anyone would take any interest or even be able to perceive it in that way is another matter.

The exhibition group is passionate, there’s no doubt about it.  Whilst most ‘normal’ people were sitting in the comfortable warmth of their living rooms, twenty-so of us were sat in the freezing cold function room of a city centre pub.  Tonight’s discussion was all about deciding on a possible theme for the exhibition, but as I left them two hours in, nothing definite had been decided let alone short-listed.  Without some clear co-ordination, the task of organising an exhibition with so many opinions to be heard seems like a daunting prospect.  Hopefully, some ground will have been covered in the final third of the meeting.

Coincidentally, at the meeting, I met the girl from the National Museums Liverpool who had contacted me about using one of my Transition photos for one of their newsletters.  Fortunatley for her, the invoice is already being sorted out. ;O)