It’s kind of funny that I began writing review of this year at the end of October! I was that done with it! While I don’t expect may people to read this it’s just something I like to do as a kind of tradition and who knows maybe in the future social scientists will look on this as a representation of what life was back in 2020.
Now while this is “all about me” I think that we need to have some perspective on this. At the start of the year a news story about a foreign virus turned the whole world upside down and into a full blown global pandemic. This has affected everyone in some way or other and we need to be mindful and realise that people have lost their lives to this, families have lost their children, parents and loved ones, people have lost their businesses and some their jobs. So in comparison to those things we should be grateful.
One of the things we’ve all had to deal with is giving up some personal freedom (which some people have a problem with) to try and stem the tide of this virus wreaking havoc in our society. This has also meant that many of the activities and events we took for granted are now virtually non-existent e.g. conventions, exhibitions, gigs, sports & trade shows. All of them are gone from small home-grown events to large corporate events. However, the moves taken so far to bring an end to this crisis have been less than successful and have served to bring out both the best and worst in society as well as government. Don’t worry I’m not going on a political rant I think enough has been said about this already by others!
Ok so let’s get into the low points of this year.
- Only attended 2 conventions.
- Had one (yes just one!) out of con cosplay shoot.
- Cancelled family holiday & not seeing my son for almost a year.
- Mental & physical health not the best.
- Miss not seeing friends & family.
Now the high points (yes there are some).
- Became debt free (not mortgage free).
- Started going to paid shoots to diversify my work and change direction.
- Had my one and only out of con cosplay shoot.
- Launched a small YouTube channel.
- Got into Warhammer thanks to Henry Cavill.
- Got a tortoise.
While 2020 will be known as the year everyone wanted to forget I’m not going to kid myself that on the 1st of January 2021 things will magically go to back to the way they were. Even though we now have a vaccine and the creator believes if successful we may return to normality by next winter it means that things will still be tough for most of us until we see the end of this pandemic. Sure there are some event promoters selling tickets for conventions in 2021 and booking guests etc., and at the same time there are other organisers who have postponed their events until 2022.
So what am I going to be doing in 2021? I still have a half day’s studio hire to use so will most likely hire a professional model and do some portrait/fashion work. I’ve booked up to go on some more paid-for shoots to carry on exploring other styles of shooting. I’d like to do more outdoor fashion shoots in Manchester as well as catch up on hunting down great street art. Rather than waiting for people to contact me I’ve started approaching people I am interested in working with and I may post some casting calls for future projects in the New Year assuming that restrictions are lifted, which at the moment isn’t looking too good but you never know.
2021 holds a lot of uncertainty for all of us but I’d like to try and at least complete some of these challenges I’ve set for myself. So until then I wish you all the best and let’s go into the New Year with some optimism and stay safe!
