Gum on My Shoe

Since 2020, I’ve marked the closing of each year by sharing one photo and one blog post for each of the preceding twelve months. 2020: My Unpredicted Year 2021: My Year in Photos and Blog Posts 2022: My Year in Photos and Blog Posts 2023: My Year in Photos and Blog Posts 2024: My Year in Photos and Blog Posts Continuing the tradition, here’s my look back at 2025 in photos and blog posts. I hope you’ll enjoy looking through it as much as I did putting it together. January As regular followers will be aware I’ve kept a Traveler’s Notebook (TN) for a number of years. I often include it in the photos I share on social media. (I suspect it has more fans than I do.) It holds two inserts and several hand-made folders and pockets. I use it as a memory journal when I’m on holiday and to record other special occasions. Stickers, tickets, photographs, and assorted ephemera cause the inserts to become much thicker than when they were new. The TN as a whole gets impressively “chun...

In this post I’ll explore how daily creativity can benefit our mental health, self-confidence, and sense of connection to others. I’ll focus on the work of four photographers (Clark James Mishler, Brandon Stanton, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, and Ellis Ducharme) and one artist (Devon Rodriguez). I’ll also draw on my experiences with daily photography and writing. Engagement This post was inspired by a recent conversation with Fran in which she mentioned a photographer in Alaska who took one photograph a day. The photographer is Clark James Mishler , a documentary portrait photographer based in Calistoga, California. He relocated to Anchorage in the early 1980s where he spent four decades as Alaska’s premier environmental portrait photographer. There’s a fascinating behind-the-scenes video of Mishler at work on the Frontier Scientists YouTube channel. His approach to street portraiture (“Would you guys mind participating in a photo shoot?”) impresses and terrifies me — the lat...

... at the beginning where I was doing it every day like clockwork, it entirely carried me out of that low spot, and I believe that it saved my life. — Ellis Ducharme Fran and I recently shared our experiences visiting the Portland Museum of Art and the Laing Art Gallery here in Newcastle upon Tyne. Continuing the Art of Friendship theme, we’re delighted to showcase photographer and videographer Ellis Ducharme, whose exhibition Six Feet Above showed through June at the Peaks Island library in Maine. The website described Six Feet Above as “a collection of thirty-six photos from a personal project to fight depression and raise awareness of mental health. Ocean themes and many cityscapes focus on finding beauty in places most deem undesirable and ugly.” Fran lived on Peaks Island for many years. Although I’ve never visited in person, I feel a great affection for the island as Fran’s shared so much of it with me. She still visits regularly and attended several of this year’...

As bloggers, we tend to write first and then look for images to enhance or accompany what we’ve written. While searching for that perfect image I’ve frequently come across pictures which weren’t what I was looking for, but nevertheless spoke to me. I realised that images can serve as blog prompts or inspirations in their own right. With that in mind, I’ve selected 21 images from Unsplash which I feel could be useful as prompts for mental health blog posts. Each is free to use and the Unsplash licence means no permission is needed to use the images for commercial and non-commercial purposes, although an attribution to the creator is appreciated. I’ve added a few thoughts of my own below each image, but if one moves you in a completely different direction, follow your inspiration! You’ll find these images and more in my Mental Health Blog Prompts collection at Unsplash, so check back there from time to time for more ideas. 1. Pawel Czerwinski Image by Pawel Czerw...

If it’s true that a picture paints a thousand words , the thousand or so words you’ve written for your latest blog post deserve the very best picture you can find. But it’s not always easy! Do you struggle to find that perfect image to accompany your lovingly crafted words? Do you ever wonder if it’s okay to use that photo you found on the Internet? Read on. What Kind of Image Are You Looking For? It’s worth spending a few minutes thinking about what kind of image you’re looking for. Are you after a banner image to go across the head of your post, or one (or more than one) placed within the body of the post itself? What aspect ratio do you need? Square? Landscape? Portrait? Some image library sites let you search on aspect ratio which can help you find the right image quicker. Bear in mind that you can crop an image yourself to whatever shape or size you need. Is the blog post one of a series? If so, are you looking for an image that matches others in the series? Do you hav...