2009 in Pictures

Back at the end of 2008, I wrote a post about a technique called "blackboxing" that was originally suggested by my college tutor, Geoff Clarke. In a nutshell it involves taking 1 image from every shoot I do, and putting it in a separate folder on the computer. There are just 3 basic rules - no shoot (no matter how crap or embarrassing) must be excluded, it's not a good idea to look in the "box" every 5 minutes or so, and the image picked must be my favourite, not necessarily the one that got published or earnt the most money. Here's 2009's black box:

2009 - not in any particular order.

So, what conclusions can I draw from this little collection? First off there's slightly less shots in there than 2008, and yet I earnt more money. Partly this is because I'm charging more, but also it's because of the lecture tour, which helps to pay the bills (and no mistake). The best things about 2009 were the much higher rate of stuff that has ended up in the portfolio, and the greater number of jobs that involved "adventures" in one form or other. I'm rather keen for this trend to continue, as I'm sure you can imagine!