A minimalist photo with a graphic feel, taken because I looked up and liked it!

14th February 2026

Photography can become a very restrictive practice, if you let it. It is easy to become creatively confined by only shooting one genre, in one particular style, or with only one subject of interest. I realise that tunnel vision is often necessary to push ourselves forward to fully understand a specific aspect of the craft. However, it can easily become the only focus and we can miss so much by not stepping outside of these confines and dipping our toes into different waters.

I headed out early for this photo walk as the Met Office had promised wall-to-wall sunshine all morning. This was after about five weeks straight of gloomy skies mixed with wind and rain. I didn’t want to miss a moment, and my body was craving some Vitamin D.

We humans are small in the greater scheme of things…

I was visiting the seafront at South Shields, a place I’ve been hundreds of times before. I really wasn’t sure if there was much point - surely I’ve seen everything that can be photographed before? I’d tried to talk myself out of it the night before (though my ND brain was also part of this interference) as it wouldn’t be interesting and I’d probably not take many photos. So I had an idea…

During my walk, I could only shoot using one of two in-camera profiles. One was a colour profile which is similar to colour slide film. The other was a monochrome profile that is similar to Kodak Tri-X film. I figured both profiles are effective in high contrast situations and unbroken sunshine with clear blue skies would certainly suit them. Also, it meant only shooting Jpeg. I can almost hear the screams!! Not shooting RAW was certainly a weird sensation. I know I could have shot RAW/Jpeg but where was the sense of adventure in that! Also, to make this a fun wander, I thought it would be nice not to spend hours doing post-processing. I could just go home and chill. I do enjoy the editing process, but it felt liberating to think about downloading the images from my camera and, other than cropping and/or straightening, I’d be done.

Tapping into this simplified approach really changed how I felt. I found I was looking around at things I’d seen many times before and wondering how I could shoot it to get the best from the profiles I was using. It loosened my creative muscle and encouraged me to really look at the most mundane things. Like the above shot of yacht masts. I thought the monochrome profile would make it an interesting, almost abstract, image. It will never win an award, but I quite like it.

I was zooming around like a toddler after eating a family bag of Skittles. I wanted to experiment, playing in a way that that made me smile. It excited me. This was fun! It was also far removed from how I would usually shoot, but I was gaining so much from the experience.

“When you’re experimenting you have to try so many things before you choose what you want, and you may go days getting nothing but exhaustion.” - Fred Astaire

Don’t eat too many sweet treats before jumping on the Ferris wheel

I feel Mr Astaire was on to something, you know. This walk could have ended up as an absolute disaster in terms of the images I captured. Changing the way I was thinking, how I really looked at scenes and objects I encountered, was worth its weight and fully justified my approach to this photo walk. I blasted a few cobwebs away and replenished my creative reservoir. No matter what I captured, how I thought and felt throughout this wander was the optimum outcome I could only have hoped for. And the very limited editing when I returned home was also a revelation as I was done in minutes instead of hours! And another big bonus was I felt the two profiles produced pretty good images when married up to the right scene. A fun day of learning all-round!

I will certainly be trying a few new approaches in the future to keep things interesting and to challenge my ever-reducing grey cells. Maybe different in-camera profiles, or using an unusual aspect ratio.

I have nothing to lose but my jpegs…

Here’s a few more from my walk.