Amateur Photographer Magazine, 28th February 2023
I was thrilled to receive a message via Instagram that one of my photos had caught the eye of the editorial team at Amateur Photographer magazine, and they wanted to feature it in one of their Pics of the Week feature that they do in each weekly edition of the magazine.
The image in question is shown below and was captured at sunrise in Thorpe Bay, Southend, Essex at the end of January 2023. It was a club day out starting at this location.
I wrote a blog post about the day here.
From invite to submission
I was invited to send a high resolution copy of the image with approximately 50 words about it alongside the technical details of how it was captured.
It felt right to give a nod to the Norwich & District Photographic Society (NDPS) for whom, if it wasn’t for their hard work arranging club trips, I would definitely not have visited this location on my own.
I wasted no time in getting a second edit done, revisiting the image, ensuring it was a little brighter than the iPad edit I did for social media in the knowledge it was going to print.
I also double checked very stringently that there were no sensor dust spots, or other distracting blemishes but thankfully it was pretty clean as the moment it was taken.
I then exported the image, sent it in with my 50 words and awaited further news.
Thinking ahead – making the image available to buy
In the meantime, it was worth thinking ahead and making sure that the image was up on my website and my online shop. Someone, somewhere may well want to buy a copy! You never know…
I have images to purchase via a range of different means, and price points – click here to find out more.
Publication
I was expecting the publication to be weeks if not months away but in less than two weeks I got confirmation that my image would be in published on 28th February 2023.
As a real bonus, the message informed me that my image had also been selected as Pic of the Week! What I didn’t realise at the time was that this meant a larger print stretched across two pages!
The digital version of the magazine came out on the weekend before the paper edition, so I could see the article ahead of it being on the newsagents shelves.
Edit:
I must own up to making a mistake in my inability to reference the very photographic club I belong to… it is of course the Norwich & District Photographic Society (NDPS) not the Norfolk & District Photographic Society.
Thankfully if you Google the latter or NDPS, you get to the right Society and website! Click here to go and take a look…
No pain, no gain…
I am so pleased to have an image published in a magazine, and of course it brings me a real sense of pride and achievement.
I am reminded of the effort that went into being at this location, and providing the opportunity to even grab the shots.
I’ve thanked my photography club above, and publicly in the text attached to the article, so what do I mean by effort, on a more personal level?
Well this location was 2.5 hours away from home so for sunrise I was peeling out of a warm bed at 4am in the morning.
As if an uber-early rise out of bed on a cold winter morning wasn’t hard enough, that morning saw sub zero temperatures and freezing fog so driving had to be careful and slower than the road speed limits allow.
So, a mega early get up, sub zero temperatures, freezing fog road conditions and 5+ hours of driving!
But, the effort brought loads of fantastic images, and the unexpected recognition seen here.
Nailing the shot
On a much lower level of sacrifice and within my control was the equipment I have, the camera, the tripod, and not being able to feel my toes afterwards as it was so cold!
Although I had ND and graduated filters with me on the day, I did not use them at this location.
As I nearly always do, I used an aperture of f/11 to ensure best depth of field with minimal diffraction, shutter speed was 1/13sec as I was on a tripod with the lowest native ISO at 64.
I used my ultra-wide angle 14-30mm lens but was actually at the zoom end 30mm for this particular shot. Of course, rule of thirds is evident for composition, to give a sense of isolation.
Final thoughts
As a perfectionist who will always have doubts that very few things I output are good enough, I’m enjoying this moment.
In the immortal words of Morrissey:
“Fame, fame, fatal fame, it can play hideous tricks on the brain…” (Morrissey & Marr, Frankly, Mr. Shankly, 1985).
Back at base, the journey continues, more locations, more trips, more gear, more experimentation, more genres, and more fantastic experiences. And the occasional moment of recognition.
Onwards and upwards…