It’s Almost May 2026… What 2025 Taught Me

It may be closer to the middle of the year than the start, but I have just got around to making my 2025 photo book of the year, and so I felt that it would be good time to sit down and have a chat about the ups and downs of last year.

Highs:

Friendship/community

For me 2025 was a brilliant year for my wildlife photography, but I think one of the best things for me, has been going out and creating friendships with other wildlife photographers and building a bit of a sense of community.

In January I met up with Wildlife Photographer UK, Ash Barnard and we went to the red kite feeding centre at Gigrin farm and had an absolutely brilliant day. Ollie and Jordey invited me out with them on some owl missions which was a real highlight and while I haven’t been out with them lately, we do have a group chat that we message on.

And speaking of Ollie and Jordey, Ollie has just started his own YouTube channel and released his first video which was a belter focused on dippers, and I shall leave a link to that in the description for you all to check out as it really is a brilliant video.

I also got to meet up with Ali, who I had met on a previous trip and had the best time with her and Gordon on my trip to the Isle of Mull in September.

As well as meeting up with Trudi, Marian, David and Jem throughout the year and just having a great time, laughing at each other and trying to get photos.

Wildlife

On the wildlife side of things, I got to see some brilliant animals in 2025 and some particular highlights were the owls with Ollie and Jordey as I had never seen a wild owl before, and for me, I think the Leos were my favourite, to be able to see the owlets when they were young as well as be able to go back and see them as adults was just amazing.

The red squirrels at Paul Fowlie’s Hide in Yorkshire, was another highlight, again being a first for me, and to be able to spend so much time with them and watch them was just brilliant.

My early morning expedition to see the black grouse was another highlight, being able to hear their calls was just magical, and while I think for me photo wise the reds I saw as I was leaving were much more photographic in their setting, it was a morning I won’t forget.

I also had my first trip to Skomer to see the puffins which was a bit of an eye-opener into the whole Instagram vs reality, but I did get one image from there, which I just love and is the cover for my 2025 photo book and features as May in my 2026 wildlife calendar.

As well as all my other adventures out in 2025, I think my trip to Mull was the stand-out moment for me, not only did I get to meet up with Ali again, seeing and photographing the massive white tailed eagles and getting some spectacular encounters with the otters was just incredible and is going to be a lifelong memory for me.

The Garden Project

One of the other big joys I had from last year was starting and working on my garden project. Trying to work out what tweaks to make and seeing all the new birds coming in to visit has been really fun, and I am continuing to work on that this year.  With everything coming into bloom I am looking forward to showing you all what has been going on in the garden so far this year.

Lows:

Expectations

When it comes to the lows of 2025, for me, its more about setting my expectations at the right level, I still do set the bar very high, expecting to be able to go out and see what I am after first time and get those keeper images, and this is something that I am going to have to continually work on to make sure I am enjoying being out in nature and not stressing myself out and putting pressure on myself to get those portfolio quality images.

Making time for the things that mean the most

I also want to make sure I take the time to photograph more than just wildlife. My first and biggest joy is Skylar, she is the reason I got into photography proper, and while she may have a 6-page spread in my book for her 12th birthday, I noticed that last year I didn’t make the time to go out and photograph with her as much as I feel I should. I am working on that this year, we recently went to a tulip field for the day to get some images, and I am trying to bring my camera with me on our walks more often, rather than just take images on my phone.

So those are a few of the highs and lows from 2025.

My 2025 photo book

As I said at the beginning of the video, I have made my best of 2025 photo book, like I did for 2024, as a way to look back and reflect on how far I have come in my photography, as well as a great way to remember all the amazing things I got to do and see in the previous year.

This book is slightly different from last years, I once again used Saal digital for this – and this is not sponsored by them, I brought this myself, it still has the acrylic cover and leatherette finish, however, my book from 2024 was from the XT range, so has these really thick pages, and while still in the professional line, 2025s book has normal thickness paper, because you can only have 46 pages in the XT version, and this one has 58.

Speaking of paper, this is where my inexperience at printing comes in, as while I love this book, I do think I chose the wrong paper. I went for the high-end print matte paper, which was more expensive, however, I think I should have gone with the photo paper matte as that is what I had in the original book and I prefer.

Now don’t get me wrong the quality of the paper in this one is great, however is it’s a bit too matte for my liking and I feel the images look a bit flatter than they should do because of this, especially when compared to last years. So I’m going to put that down to a learning experience and know for next time, that the standard photo paper matte is what I want.

Size wise, I went for the 30 x 21 as before as I found this was a good size, and the standout feature of these books is the seamless design so you can have a double spread image and have no bits missing in the seam.

One of the things I noticed when coming to put this book together, was that I didn’t need to do much in the way of tweaking or re-editing the images like what I ended up doing last year. I feel that I have found a good balance with my editing now and keep them quite natural and don’t push the images too far.

I set the book out in chronological order, as a way to take you through the year, and it is not just my wildlife photos, the criteria was that all the images were to have been taken on my proper camera, so it features a few landscapy bits, most prominently 3 images of the Tobermory lighthouse, I love that lighthouse, it also featured in last year’s book, as well as images of Skylar and Tim.

I really enjoyed making this book and to have it in the hands and be able to just flick though the pages and not to have to scroll through social media or my image archive on my computer to see my favourite images is for me, quite special.

Moving on

Having looked back on 2025, as we move even further though 2026, some things I want to focus on are taking more images of not just Skylar, but family as well as landscapes and not just use my phone for these things, I feel I have become quite reliant on using my phone as it is more convenient, though I feel that this could be something I end up regretting as a phone image is just not the same as one taken on a proper camera.

I also want to focus on more local wildlife, I have been to Scotland on my winter wildlife tour which was brilliant, and we are off again soon on the boat for a few weeks, but outside of that, focusing more on wildlife near home is something I am looking forward to doing, I already have permission from two new sites that I am very much looking forward to exploring. 

Another aspect I want to build on is my field craft and patience with myself. I find that my solo excursions are usually the ones where I don’t get the outcome I want, and I feel that this is down to a lack of experience and being hard on myself. If I gave myself the time to explore an area more, and more visit than once before heading out to make my videos, then just by being out more and learning what is about and when I would get better results. Though my free time in which to go out before making videos is sparse, I do think in the long run if and when I can, it is definitely worth doing, and is another reason I want to stay local more often.