This journal records my actual ten thousand hours of deliberate practice mastering the art of photography
Hours 10,323. to 10,385
31st December 2025
Hours 10,384 to 10,385
(½h) updating this journal
(1h) Amersham Coffee Club
(½h) final adjustments to “Stripes-Alternative” below – removing some chromatic fringing and other colour casts
30th December 2025
Hours 10,382 to 10,383
(1h) finishing and publishing the “Autumn 2025” post
(½h) updating this journal
(½h) creating the “Stripes-Alternative”, right
29th December 2025
Hour 10,381
(1h) shooting at Stanbrook Abbey, including the image which eventually became “Stanbrook Abbey Christmas 2025”, above
28th December 2025
Hour 10,380
(1h) finishing the top images in the “Autumn 2025” post
27th December 2025
Hours 10,378 to 10,379
(1h) processing images shot yesterday
(1h) updating the images discussed at last week’s Coffee Club
26th December 2025
Hour 10,377
(½h) adding a number of images to the “Autumn 2025” post
(½h) shooting some ICM images in Hadley, where we were staying over night
25th December 2025
Hour 10,376
(1h) completing the text about the top image in the “Autumn 2025” post, updating this journal and lots of miscellaneous Flickr and journal updates
24th December 2025
Hours 10,374 to 10,375
(1h) adding images to the “Autumn 2025” post including researching and writing up the Threshold of Liberty image which is a profoundly philosophical work
(1h) Amersham Coffee club:
- “Stripes” – square crop suggested as the negative space to the left doesn’t add anything, and possibly detracts
- “Zebra with Blue Stripe” – gained a cool reception as it was thought that the blue rectangle didn’t relate to the image
- “Abandoned Beach” generally likes
23rd December 2025
Hours 10,372 to 10,373
(1h) updating this journal and associated Flickr site
(1h) adding the top 10 photos to the “Autumn 2025” Flickr album
22nd December 2025
Hours 10,370 to 10,371
(1h) creating the “Green Blue Abstract” above, on the abstract portal theme
(½h) shooting the Christmas scene of Stoke Poges, below
(½h) processing “The Night Before Christmas” below which is a candidate for next year’s village calendar
21st December 2025
Hours 10,368 to 10,369
(½h) creating the above mono version of “West Balcony – Grand Central Station” originally shot on the 5th November
(1h) creating the “New York Street Photography” Flickr album and integrating the images into this journal
(½h) collating the top 10 images of Autumn 2025
20th December 2025
Hours 10,366 to 10,367
(1h) preparing and ordering prints for next Wednesday’s coffee meeting including the components of a “Zebra with Blue Stripe” collage
(1h) updating this journal
19th December 2025
Hours 10,364 to 10,365
(2h) editing and processing seascapes from Agadir including “Abandoned Beach”, below which is a candidate for the next, “Abandoned Places”, set subject competition at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club
18th December 2025
Hours 10,358 to 10,363
(4h) creating “Stripes” above. The stripes have some fir texture to break the harshness of a block of colour
(2h) Amersham Pic Group – impressive presentation by Laurie Turner
17th December 2025
Hours 10,356 to 10,257
(1h) at the Amersham Coffee Club, some interesting ideas discussed and pictures shown, including prints on matt paper with selective varnishing varnishing (gloss) and one on a lustre paper with a matt varnish
(½h) creating a draft of of “Stripes”, above, before photoshop crashed and I lost everything
(½h) updating this journal
16th December 2025
Hour 10,355
(½h) updating this journal
(½h) creating “Zebra with Blue Stripe”, which was actually created by accident whilst I was working on another idea. I like it
15th December 2025
Hours 10,352 to 10,354
(1h) updating this journal
(2h) finally finalising and ordering the Canada 2025 book
14th December 2025
Hours 10,349 to 10,351
(½h) creating the “Sand Abstract” above, which was shot in Agadir on the 28th November and processed using the the techniques recommended by Martin Addison on the 17th November
(2½h) “finishing” the Canada 2025 book
13th December 2025
Hour 10,348
(1h) working on the Canada 2025 book
12th December 2025
Hour 10,347
(1h) working on the Canada 2025 book
11th December 2025
Hour 10,346
(1h) editing and processing images for my Canada 2025 book
10th December 2025
Hours 10,344 to 10,345
(1½h) Amersham Coffee club
(½h) updating this journal
9th December 2025
Hours 10,341 to 10,343
(½h) updating this journal
(½h) processing the “Old Heron” image, right, shot in Canada
(2h) Stoke Poges Photographic Club PDI competition, set subject “Funny/ Humorous” my entries below
8th December 2025
Hours 10,337 to 10,340
(1½h) helping Jeremy Schrire, edit his collection of fabulous street photographs for this talk to the Amersham Photographic Society in January
(½h) preparing prints for this evening’s competition at APS
(2h) APS print competition, my entries below, both collages
7th December 2025
Hours 10,335 to 10,336
(2h) listening to the BBC Sounds, This Cultural Life
- “Anselm Kiefer” where he cites Joseph Beuys as a major influence and the greatest artist of the second part of the 20th Century
- “Jenny Saville“
6th December 2025
Hours 10,333 to 10,334
(½h) editing and processing images shot on my iPhone over the last few days, including “Woman and Child in Lights”, above
(1h) Updating this journal with images from the last few days, particularly the York Art Museum yesterday
(½h) Sean Tucker YouTube: “I asked A.I. to Critique my Street Photography. This is what I learned.“
- Top tip: treat it like a conversation and be specific
- Sean is very much of the opinion that AIs don’t understand art. I think this is naïve as large language models learn in a way that not entirely dissimilar to how humans learn about art. Humans are not born with an understanding of art, they learn and so too do AIs. They may be crude at the moment, but they’re getting better all the time
5th December 2025
Hours 10,331 to 10,332
(1½h) York Art Museum, several British Surrealists including:
- Ben Nicholson’s, 1934, “Still Life – Birdie”, above
- Paul Nash’s, 1937, “Winter Sea”, left
- Liz Miller Kovacs’, 2024, “Supernatural”, below
(½h) updating this journal
4th December 2025
Hour 10,330
(½h) selecting and processing PDIs for next week’s “Funny/ Humorous” set-subject competition at Stoke Poges, and PDI for the Amersham Print competition on Monday, which in one case needed shooting, straightening and processing
(½h) updating this journal for the past 3 days
3rd December 2025
Hours 10,328 to 10,329
(1h) Amersham Coffee Club
(½h) remounting my “Gilded Blavatnik Staircase” for next Monday’s print competition at Amersham,
(½h) processing images, particularly ICM seascapes from Morroco
2nd December 2025
Hours 10,326 to 10,327
(½h) transferring images from Morocco to my main computer and starting the editing process
(1½h) Stoke Poges Photographic Club, round 3 of the North West Federation of Camera Clubs’ joint print and PDI competition; against Hemel Hempstead and Watford, so the standard was very high. My “Mr Pirate” print, right, did reasonably OK scoring 18 which was above average for the evening
1st December 2025
Hours 10,323 to 10,325
(1h) updating this journal, including all the new month admin, but not including a lot of time updating the website theme
(2h) Amersham Photographic Society – lecture by Will Cheung ‘Day in a life’
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