Still positive.. in more ways than one
Rainbow over Wast Water in the Western Lake District
So it turns out having Covid fairly mildly is a pretty good excuse to get things done. I don’t feel too bad, and I’m over almost all the symptoms now other than a persistent runny nose which I’m pretty used to anyway since that is usually a side effect of being out in the wind and cold for sunrise photography. The worst thing for me was a headache, followed by a slight temperature and a feeling generally of being fatigued. The boys have a horrible cough which is terrible at night, but so far, I’ve avoided that.
Funnily enough, I think I knew I had covid before testing and finding out that my boys had it from their mum. Last week in the Lake District I’d hiked a fell in the morning called Red Screes which sits at about 770m in altitude. The route i did started at an elevated point on the Kirkstone pass, so the true climb for me was about half of that, but it was a scramble and enough to get the heart rate up. Later than day I hiked to the top of Loughrigg Fell which at 336 mtrs in altitude is under half the size of Red Screes but it has a reputation of having incredible panoramic views over Rydal Water, Windermere and Grassmere. The reason for doing Loughrigg was because I wanted to check for compositions the following day for sunrise, I was staying a stones throw from Rydal Water so this made a lot of sense for a location as it overlooks Rydal Water, but I was unaware of compositions. When it came to the following day, I had no energy and really struggled to climb the easy hike that I’d raced up the previous day, I thought it was because I’d been getting up at 4am for 3 days in a row but I could also feel that I had a temperature and the onset of a headache, so I started putting two and two together and in this instance, coming up with the right answer… bloody covid.
So I had to check out of the Lakes a day and a bit earlier than planned, which was super frustrating since the reason I was back in the Lake District was because my visit to the Lakes a few weeks earlier had been pretty much ruined by stormy weather… I’m starting to think the Lakes don’t like me visiting!!
What this enforced break and subsequent isolation period has done is given me time to address some of the things I’d not been getting around to, so there are positives about being positive (see what I did there?). You may have seen me mention a new project that I’m working on in my latest vlog, and I’m really excited to start plotting out what it will look like. The project is going to be called the F8 Photography Academy and will be something aimed at the community and will include quite a few different elements which if they all come together will und up being a pretty awesome. It is going to be membership based, but the good news is that it will be a membership which will be free to join. In time there will likely be a premium membership with access to different content and likely some workshops but that won’t come until further down the line.
All of the details are still at planning stage, but a few things that I can tell you it will include is photography meet ups, zooms with various speaker guests, live web based classes for things like lightroom editing, photography techniques for the field, optional photographic projects with the opportunity to share to an audience your work and some of the detail behind it, hopefully some nice discounts at some photography and outdoor pursuit outlets and much more. This isn’t a photography club, I want that to be very clear, I’m not a fan of photography clubs that are run by old school photographers who believe that photography must be done in a certain way and stifle creativity, the F8 Photography Academy will be for all and I will make sure that absolute beginners who shoot only with an iphone get as much value form this as those seasoned photographers who shoot for a living.
I will be sending out a link in the coming week or so such that people can register an interest in becoming a member (as mentioned, it won’t cost anything to join and any premium aspect in the future will be totally optional).
So watch this space, the F8 Photography Academy is coming and I’m going to make sure that it’s going to be a really positive, educational and fun thing to be involved in. Any further announcements about this will be done via my news letter so if you’ve not already done so, make sure you join my mailing list.
Last thing to mention is the new sections on this website. I’ve added a locations guide page where I will be adding some nice guides to locations to visit for photography. I’ve added “5 easy and Accessible locations in East Sussex” and I will add another for West Sussex and another for Surrey shortly. I hope this will be helpful and I’d very much like to get feedback from you if it is, so if you’ve taken a look at it, let me know your thoughts and how I can improve on it to make it even more helpful.
I’m going to focus now on getting myself over the finishing line of having covid and getting that negative result so I can get back out shooting again. Until next time, stay safe and see you all soon.
Cheers
Jody