FINALLY, I DID IT!

At last my wife can finally stop nagging me with her weekly 'So when did you say you were going to sort your new website out?'

It's a good thing, really it is. Not the nagging bit, but the getting-my-new-website-sorted bit. It has been a long time coming, and secretely, I did begin to wonder if it would ever actually happen. Then Covid-19 actually happened, and suddenly I found myself staring into a big black hole filled with something I never normally have - spare time. Trips cancelled, plans on hold, country in lockdown, confined to barracks. No excuses left. Damn.

For most of the year, I'm rarely at home for more than a couple of weeks between photography workshops, tours, recces and personal shoots, and when I am home, by the time I've got over jetlag, met my regular magazine-article deadlines, caught up on admin and washed my smalls, it's time to pack my suitcase, charge my camera batteries and drive to the airport again. I don't mind this at all. I love my job. But for the last year (okay, 18 months) my new website has been following me around like a dark cloud. I knew I would have to tackle it at some stage, but I also knew that it would take a lot of time, more time than I ever have between trips. So I quietly slipped it to the bottom of the pile. Again and again.

Now it's all done, I feel a huge weight has been lifted. I was right though. It did take a lot of time, and if we weren't in lockdown, I suspect that dark cloud would still be hanging over me - though I'd be leading a photography tour in Namibia at this very moment (April 30th 2020) so I wouldn't actually care!

A month of working 6 days a week and doing little else has changed all that. I've selected, re-sized, compressed, uploaded, captioned and keyworded well over 1000 images and the end result is right here. My old website was outdated both in terms of technology and as a showcase for my work (I hadn't updated it for years because I'd promised myself a new shiny retina-optimised one), but this one is bang up to date and I feel proud to direct people to it. I've finally got my workshop and tour schedule online too, even if Coronavirus has sent it into a bit of a spin.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and I hope to see you on a future trip somewhere in the world. Once I've dealt with a mountain of unprocessed Raw files. And decorated the lounge!