Striding towards soft-play

Newsletter #7

I’ve been away on holiday with the family. It was both hilarious and exhausting in equal measure. We drove to Germany and back, via stops in France, Belgium and the Netherlands - visiting family while we were there. On the final morning, as we left our French gite and wound our way past windmills and over rolling hills towards the ferry port, we wished we could do it all again.

This was a family trip first, and photography trip tenth. I took my camera with me, but with the appreciation that if I got 3 photos of the kids I liked, that would be considered a success. As it turns out, I probably got more than 3 photos of the kids I loved, but many others in general which I liked, and today I want to talk about those in particular.

In Newsletter #6 I reflected about not having a photography “style” - which was made evident by the jumble of different images I took last month alone. I questioned whether this was a strength or a weakness, but that’s as far as I got as I was hungover and needed a lie down. However, since then I watched (yet another) Walkie Talkie episode from PaulieB and the photographer he was interviewing made a throwaway comment about how they consider the majority of their images as “sketches”. This really resonated (but not enough for me to actually remember which photographer mentioned it, sorry!)

I took the above image on the ferry home. I’d never taken my camera on a cross channel ferry before, but oh boy is it a great place for photography. In the right light (which we got on the way out) the tones are amazing, and even cloudy crossings like this one make for really moody shots when considered alongside the 90s drapes and up-lights.

This is not a portfolio worthy image, by any means. I was trying to persuade my 18 month old to get a picture with me in the mirror outside the duty-free, but as you can see, he had zero interest in that. Instead, I captured him striding off towards the soft-play. What this is, however, is a great sketch. It was practice of trying to shoot a moving (dismissive) target, with fore, middle and backgrounds to consider focusing between. It also now forms a perfect supporting image to contextualise the story of our ferry crossing, and complements the much “better” images really well.

It is all too easy to resist shooting or sharing images based on the fact they might not be “perfect” or align with your “style”. But each one contributes towards the skill of being able to capture that one great shot that comes around far too infrequently. I have 616 images from this trip in my Lightroom album, and that’s after curation. That’s an awful lot of sketches, and not many pieces of art. But I love them all, just not quite as much as that boy loves soft-play.

I’d love to see one of your sketches. Drop it in a reply here, or tag me on Instagram - and let’s celebrate some process and mediocrity together 🥂

24 April 2026