Ol Jogi and Muchenje—for all your wildlife needs…
Sunset in a mokoro…
This is my last blog post of 2022, so I thought I'd give you a quick recap of what I got up to during the last 12 months:
five print sales
nearly 6,000 downloads
a couple of trips to Africa
three workshops
one competition win (and a few other awards)
one Sony a1, one MacBook Pro and one Studio Display
dozens of articles leading to 9k website visitors, 40k Instagram reach and 2.2m Facebook reach
52 Shots of the Week
And there you have it. Read on if you'd like to know more. Otherwise, you can go and have another mince pie...!
Print Sales
I don't sell many prints, and I only managed five this year. In fact, the fifth sale almost didn't go through when my friend James broke down in France—don't ask!—but, fortunately, the buyer was able to print it out locally in the end. Phew!
I was also delighted to get an order from my friend Pierre in Paris, who's now put up Light Elephant and Eye of the Rhino in his new home. I look forward to seeing them in person when I next visit...!
Emily the Rhino in Paris…
Downloads
My friend Jason and I always talk about 'making money while you sleep', and that's what I try to do with my stock agencies. I license files through around 10 of them, and I usually manage to sell a few hundred downloads a month. I've managed to increase that figure from 411 to 453 over the past year, so it's heading in the right direction, but the price per download is falling all the time, and it's now only 72p!
Fortunately, I've managed to use the Solent News picture agency to place a few of my images in The Daily Star, The Guardian, The Sun and The Times. I get paid around £80 per photo, so it lifts the average slightly. Here's one that was recently published in The Daily Star (apologies for the pun!).
Africa
I was lucky enough to visit Africa twice this year, so my thanks go to Alec at Ol Jogi and Shaun at Muchenje for hosting me and, of course, to all the staff who made me feel so welcome. I took thousands of pictures—it's hard not to when your camera has a frame rate of 30 fps!—but here are my top 10. Credit goes to Miriam for most of the captions...!
Workshops
After the Covid nightmare of 2020-21,Handmade Workshopsmanaged to arrange three workshops for me to lead. We usually go to the London Wetland Centre, but we tried Bushy Park for a change, too. They all seemed to go well, and I hope everyone found them useful—despite the occasional drizzle!
We hope to arrange one next spring, so keep an eye out for that on my Events page. I keep that updated in real time, so it's always the best place to go to find out what's on.
Awards
I was given a few awards this year, but I can't say I'm particularly proud of any of them. Photography competitions these days seem to be just a money-making exercise, so if you're willing to pay for entry, you can have as many awards as you like! Anyway, these are the ones I was granted:
The Best Modern and Contemporary Artists Prize 2022
The Faces of Peace Art Prize 2022
Tailor-Made Tour Company of the Year 2022 for England in the Travel & Hospitality Awards
International Prize Leonardo da Vinci - The Universal Artist 2022
ATIM's Top 60 Masters for 2022 (see magazine feature on p25 and video starting at 26:26)
I hadn't entered (let alone won!) many 'proper' competitions recently, so it was nice to see Nun Shall Pass win Shoot The Frame's Shoot The Wild event in October. There was no money involved, and the prizes weren't terribly useful, but at least my ego feels better now...!
Nun Shall Pass
Equipment
It's been a big year for me when it comes to renewing my equipment. It was a risky (and expensive!) step to switch from DSLRs to mirrorless cameras, but everything's worked out very well, and I'm happy with my decision.
Sony a1 mirrrorless camera with 600mm G Master lens
I've also upgraded my laptop to the latest and greatest Apple MacBook Pro with the M1 Max chip, and I've traded in my (very!) old Thunderbolt Display for a brand new Apple Studio Display. Again, it was expensive, but my bank manager was very understanding...!
If you're facing a similar choice and need a bit of friendly advice, feel free to read one of the posts on my blog or drop me a line at nick@nickdalephotography.com.
Articles
As well as my usual outlets, I've had a few articles published in Lens Magazine, PHOTOHOUSE and Outdoor Photography, which is always nice. Here are the opening spreads:
Lens Magazine
PHOTOHOUSE
Outdoor Photography
I haven't been given any articles by Expert Photography recently as they're pausing for a rethink, but I'm still doing a few for CameraReviews. You can see everything I've written on my two author pages (here and here), but here are a few recent ones:
I'm also trying to publish a blog post every weekend. Here are the last few if you fancy a read:
Shot of the Week
The daily hints and tips I've been posting on Facebook have grown my audience enormously. If you're a regular reader, then I have to thank you. I can't imagine how I've managed to reach a couple of million people. I guess I must be very big in Delhi...!
When it comes to Instagram, publishing on a daily basis seems to be growing my reach a little bit, particularly amongst non-followers, but it's a slow process. However, it’s the only platform where I post my Shot of the Week these days as I've run out of Top 100 colour shots that 'deserve' to be on my website!
Here are my latest offerings, all of them taken on my recent trips to Kenya and Botswana.
Funny Face
Eat Dirt!
Black Bird
Dust to Dust
And that's it!
Let me know if you make any New Year's Resolutions for your photography. In the meantime, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
If you’d like to order a framed print of one of my wildlife photographs, please visit the Prints page.
If you’d like to book a lesson or order an online photography course, please visit my Lessons and Courses pages.