LTP 136: New Year’s Challenges


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In this solo show Bart shares his idea of setting himself “New Year’s Challenges” instead of stereotypical New Year’s resolutions, looks back on his 2024 challenge to try shoot more monochromes, and forward to his 2025 challenge to try find shots where the colours themselves are the primary subject.

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I gave up on the concept of new year's resolutions many years ago — the science is in, they don't work and they usually just make you feel worse! But, I didn't give up on the concept of using the changing year as an opportunity for change. Rather than resoling to meet some unrealistic goal and then beating myself up for inevitably failing, I flipped things around and set my self challenges instead. Not "do this thing" or "don't do this thing", but "try this new thing".

There's no failure or success, it's just an idea to keep in your head to help nudge you towards something you think will be positive. Simply keeping the challenge in your mind will inevitably affect what you do. Sometimes that effect will be big, and sometimes it will be small, but you're probably going to learn something useful regardless.

For 2024 my challenge was to try to improve my monochrome work. My instinctual photographic style is very colour-forward with sharp detail, lots of contrast, and punchy colours. The colours are not the subject in my instinctive style, but they are central to the look and feel of my shots of just just about everything — landscapes, macros, trains, you name it, punchy is my look! So, for 2024 my challenge was to slow down and consider the very opposite of my instinctual style, get rid of the colour completely! Could I capture the same subjects in a very different way? I was seeing some amazing monochrome work on Glass, and I realised that I might enjoy exploring that subset of photography.

I don't know if others think my 2024 challenge was fruitful, but I certainly do. The challenge kept new questions active in my mind all year. As I was shooting I was as shooting I was asking myself new questions like — is the colour helping or hindering? or is the colour optional here? That really helped me see things in new ways.

I didn't change my default look. I didn't want to! But I really enjoyed exploring new ideas and experimenting with new techniques. Looking back on my work from last year it seems clear to me that I've added a really useful new tool to my photographic toolbox!

Before producing this episode I compiled my successful monochromes from 2024 into a series on Glass, so you can judge for yourself how my challenge turned out

What I find interesting is that I started the year inspired by a handful of very different monochrome-first photographers who all had their own signature looks, and while those examples helped me see and think differently, my monochrome work hasn't ended up looking like any of theirs, it's still got something of my default style in it, even without the punchy colours.

I think punchy is probably still a good description for my monochrome shots. They tend to be even more contrasty than my colour shots, with even more emphasis on detail, even blacker blacks, and even whiter whites! I also remembered just how much I love using the colour channel mixer to turn blue skies black and add some super contrast with the clouds

This shot of a train along my beloved Royal Canal captures that look well:

https://glass.photo/bbusschots/KmX3spY9iuqz72Lc51TYe

I had hoped that focusing on monochrome would help me get better at recognising interesting shapes in the world around me, because without colour to add interest I expected to need to draw more heavily on shapes and lines to build interesting compositions. That certainly proved to be true, and as I hoped, I think it's just made me a better photographer in general, not just in monochrome.

I think this shot of rectangles within rectangles in the architecture of the newest student apartments in Maynooth University illustrates that best. I'd never have shot anything like that before this challenge.

https://glass.photo/bbusschots/Vkl0Lfz3tcQS7zHQPe8zZ

A nice unexpected discovery is how powerful monochromes can be at night. I think my single favourite image from 2024 has to be this night shot of a pair of students approaching the main entrance to the magnificent Revivalist Gothic St. Patrick's House in St. Patrick's College Maynooth:

https://glass.photo/bbusschots/7EQo6ehwamfzoP5OpFOENt

Speaking of the unexpected — a nice thing about challenges is that because they're open-ended and are just about keeping an idea in your mind for the year, they can bring all sorts of little bonus extras you could never have anticipated. I probably learned more about colour in 2024 than the entire previous decade. I certainly didn’t expect that from a challenge to myself to use it less! For years colour theory baffled me, and I just didn't get what HSL and hue and all those words really meant. By really digging in deep to how colour channel mixers work all that finally clicked for me!

So, on the whole, I'm considering my 2024 challenge a resounding success. Yay!

But it's 2025 now, can I repeat that success? Honestly, I have no idea, but I do have a new challenge so I can find out.

By learning to shoot without colour I got more attuned to the beauty in textures, and while colour obviously plays no role in monochrome shots of textures, it can play a big role in the beauty in textured scenes themselves.

What really helped this idea click in my head is discussions with my Dad who's also a photographer, and I think a listener (hi Dad ). While I'm factually Flemish, and do have a sense of connection to Flanders and a real love for the place, I'm also very Irish, probably more so in fact. My Dad on the other hand is Flemish to his very core and has the kind of deep connection to the Flemish landscape he grew up in that I do to the Irish landscape I grew up in. I should also mention that I definitely got my interest in photography from my Dad — the earliest shots of me are all monochromes developed in a home darkroom!

Like I try to capture the beauty I see in the Irish landscape, he tries to do the same in the Flemish landscape, but they are very different landscapes. Especially in autumn and winter the Flemish landscape's beauty is very subtle iIn fact, the beauty is more in its textures than anything else. The comforting earthy tones speckled with bits of reassuring green and accented with flashes of white from the birch bark all around are something special, and not at all easy to capture. Sure, there are also lots of interesting shapes with meandering rivers and dykes, and stunning tall lines of Poplar trees, they play second fiddle to the textures.

Those of us in the family into photography have a little private chat group where we share our work and comment on it. While enjoying Dad's best shots of the Flemish landscapes something he said about what he was trying to capture hit me like a revelation — the distinctive warm earthy colour pallet is the primary subject! It's not one specific colour, or one nice curving river bank, it's the broader colour pallet of the scene as a whole that's really the most important subject in his best shots.

Looking back through my own archive of Flemish landscapes I think this one from a frosty winter many years ago captures the feel of the Flemish countryside best for me:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bbusschots/5426456218/in/photolist-2puETMY-2pwVrai-jzSonY-2puLm6D-2pxegBp-jDLGmy-nuvq44-2pukfZn-iWYTfr-joZSaq-jB3CYr-jbA1pj-iNU2ER-oaZgP3-7TnrtC-j1UXdc-jhiDK1-j9pYwn-iR8Gvk-iUzPWS-j53GB4-j1VvRs-jnKbfE-jyiMFx-iUuB1F-jdfLKF-j6eRon-iSFftZ-juUyy7-j3HFGn-gAhzUH-js6a2x-jthav9-jgenuB-5MFtz4-7RHVik-7RHvbB-jeXLSP-7S26DW-iZsAkt-7RXRwx-jtewcr-jqq4wY-9gw1wh-7SLhDy-7SKSY9-6pcQU1-9gw1nY-8HaFtn-7TLCVe

A little bit less dramatic, I found another shot of the same pond in more mundane light:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bbusschots/11909631513/in/photolist-2puETMY-2pwVrai-jzSonY-2puLm6D-2pxegBp-jDLGmy-nuvq44-2pukfZn-iWYTfr-joZSaq-jB3CYr-jbA1pj-iNU2ER-oaZgP3-7TnrtC-j1UXdc-jhiDK1-j9pYwn-iR8Gvk-iUzPWS-j53GB4-j1VvRs-jnKbfE-jyiMFx-iUuB1F-jdfLKF-j6eRon-iSFftZ-juUyy7-j3HFGn-gAhzUH-js6a2x-jthav9-jgenuB-5MFtz4-7RHVik-7RHvbB-jeXLSP-7S26DW-iZsAkt-7RXRwx-jtewcr-jqq4wY-9gw1wh-7SLhDy-7SKSY9-6pcQU1-9gw1nY-8HaFtn-7TLCVe

Like I said, The beauty in this landscape really is subtle. It's not one specific thing, but the overall texture and feel of the place, and, like I keep saying, the colour pallet.

So, my challenge for 2025 is to find more scenes where the colours themselves are the primary subject. I'm only getting started, but I'm already having fun. This shot of the differently coloured bare winter vegetation in Carton House Estate worked out very nicely, and without having the challenge in my head I'm certain I'd never have noticed it, let alone captured it:

https://glass.photo/bbusschots/4zZswIk6QLyGQleyIWSieh

I don't know if New Year's Challenges will work for everyone, but they've worked for me, and I hope I've inspired you to think about a way in which you'd like to challenge yourself to shoot differently in 2025.

Happy New Year!

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