UPDATE: My January submission was selected to be featured in the Examiner calendar. Thank you for everyone who voted for my photo. You can see the full calendar here.
Hello, and welcome to the first in a feature of posts I like to refer to as the Super Fun Calendar Competition Thingamajig. Thingamajig is a word according to auto-correct. Amazing. But I digress. As I’ve not yet formally – or informally – introduced myself (which I will do soon in a separate piece), I’ll provide a short but succinct summary of myself and what this feature is about.
My name is Manpreet, and I’m a 26-year-old healthcare assistant at a mental health center. In my spare time, however, I like to take and edit photos. In an ideal world, I’d be doing this in my working time, too. I’m from a town called Huddersfield, known mostly for being situated within Yorkshire, home to the beautiful moors and Patrick Stewart. Also Lena Headey.
As with most established mega-towns and cities, Huddersfield has a local newspaper. Ours is called The Huddersfield Daily Examiner, or The Examiner, to shorten it; and recently they’ve kick-started an annual calendar competition wherein readers can submit their own photography with the chance to potentially be featured in The Examiner’s own, annual calendar, which then becomes available to the public to own a copy of, for use in their personal domiciles/dustbins once it hits February.
In all seriousness, though, I like to think my photography has significantly improved over the past year or two. I submitted a handful of photos last year – all taken on a phone camera – of which one made it to the final choices for one of the months. Since having stepped away from phone-tography to Proper Photography (within modest reason) I’ve put some actual time and effort into teaching myself the basics and then some, as well as becoming fairly familiar with Adobe Photoshop.
So, naturally, when I saw my local newspaper was taking submissions for their 2018 calendar, I jumped into my personal archives and hand-selected some favourite photos of mine from each corresponding month, covering January-through-December in all its annual glory.
And so, to kick-start my collection of submissions, allow me to present you with my photo for January:
Titled Shrivelled Sunset, largely because of the shrivelled, dead remnants of leaves, as well as my love for alliteration, this photo was taken at a local and favourite spot of mine, Greenhead Park.
I’ve always been a fan of lovely landscapes and scenery, but it wasn’t until I got my hands on a proper camera that I truly began to experience and understand the core of just how beautifully an image can be captured. This shot was most likely taken with numb hands during a frosty photo session, thanks to my poor circulation and dedication to a good sunset. Whilst it isn’t a quintessential or the most typical example of a winter snap, I like to think it gives an invigoratingly cold insight into one of the more enjoyable aspects of the chillier months: the natural beauty that’s inextricably intertwined within winter. There’s an unconventional beauty in death.
Manpreet Singh – photographer at Ready, Steady, Cut!
Follow me on Instagram – MannyManpreet
Follow Ready, Steady, Cut! on our official Instagram account – ReadySteadyCut
View my other submissions:
