It’s been a while since I was on here. Truth be told, its been a while since I’ve felt I’ve taken any photos worth your time. There are many boring reasons for this, but the most prevalent is that I don’t feel I’m getting anywhere with photography. I can take photos, edit and then I send them off to the ether of the internet and bar a few ‘likes’ from family the feedback is always muted. On a positive mind day I’ll put the instagram failures down to timings or tags, on a negative mind day its because the photos just ain’t good enough. It’s been about 2 years since I first tentatively started putting some images up for sale. 2 years later and I’m still waiting for the first sale. So, given my ego can only take so much of a beating I stopped looking for photo opportunities. I stopped looking for what was on at the weekends, and started making excuses about lack of money, time etc. When that goes on for a while you tend to believe it, and run away from the truth that it was easier to not try then to try and fail.

I wish the next lines could be the fairytale bit, where suddenly things start to pick up and I become better. Unfortunately that would be a lie – I’m still at the running away stage. But (there’s always a but!) I did pick the camera up again. For my birthday my parents and partner took me to the wye valley butterfly zoo nr Symons Yat.  From the moment I walked in I knew there wouldn’t be a better place to try and re-engage with the camera and photography.

The place was incredible. So many incredible colours – both from the butterflies and the plant life that was as much of a feature as the butterflies themselves. I’d put my 60mm macro lens on the Canon 60D, selected manual and just started having fun.

The conditions weren’t exactly challenging. Butterflies were practically fighting each other to get in front of the lens. But I started seeing good images flash up and for the first time in a while started to get excited again.

After I ran around like a headless chicken and trying to get a photo of anything that moved I remembered to calm down and try to get the different shots, not just the ‘touristy’ ones.

And then a photo made me laugh, I love putting the humour in photos but its something that I haven’t managed to do recently. ‘Cos is it just me – or does this butterfly think he’s batman?

And then the better photos started to come in. Don’t get me wrong – I know that in the grand scheme of things these photos are small fry and average. But seeing them pop up on the computer  made me happy.

And maybe thats what I need to focus on more. As long as I enjoy taking the photos and seeing the results, does it matter how much feedback I get? Of course it’s always going to be better with feedback – either positive or constructive. Perhaps I need to curb the ambitions and just focus on the having fun part. On the plus side – 3 butterflies landed on me when I was there and thats meant to be lucky!