Selling My Own Photography Products

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How my photography business has changed and how I’m adapting to changes…

I’m beginning to use my blog as a sounding board or more of a way to release my thoughts on my artwork and business. Today I’m going to talk about how I’ve had to be like water to flow with my business as it changed during the Coronavirus Pandemic.

The Wharf, Hinckley, Leicestershire

I started my business in 2012 at the same time that I enrolled on to a level three photography course at North Warwickshire and Hinckley College. I’d alway loved photography but never realised I could do it for a living. I wished I’d thought about this when I first left school because I’ve made billions of mistakes in what feels like hundreds of different jobs.

I’ve never been a very good employee! I always know better, hate rules, can’t apply myself to other people’s businesses as an employee and my nature is really quite rebellious! Believe me I’ve tried. I can’t say I’ve been a bad person within my past jobs because I’m a people person and love to be around others and get on with almost everyone and have stuck it out at some jobs. Three years was my longest reign in just two jobs.

Anyway, I was made redundant from Croner Consulting as telephone appointment maker for Health and Safety and Employment Law consultancy services. It was a tough job, speaking to over a hundred people each day to try and make an appointment for the business managers to go and close a sale.

St. Catherine’s Church, Burbage, Leicestershire

I think I’m digressing as usual!

I opened my photography business initially to be a wedding photographer until I learned more about the artwork side of things through college. Anyone can be a wedding photographer, all they need to do is buy a camera and watch a few YouTube videos. That’s all there is to it really, if you don’t factor in experience and knowledge! I know some amazing wedding photographers and by the same token, many who think they’re that! I also worked freelance for local and international businesses and charities, which was all great until the Coronavirus Pandemic popped over to the UK.

At that time, all businesses were ordered to close, taking all the people I could work for with them and leaving me with nobody to hire me. Of course I wasn’t the only person in the world for this to happen to but this is my journey…

Locked Down, Documentary Project

I had nothing to do, so I began to document the lockdown and ended up making a book and working with the community to tell their stories. My book publisher then began to also make and produce photographic jigsaw puzzles for their photographers and I jumped on the bandwagon to see how it would work.

Booom!!!

As if all I needed to help me get off the ground was a global pandemic!!!

I couldn’t believe it, upon making 6 of my favourite local photographs into JIgsaw Puzzles, right in the middle of a jigsaw puzzle boom was all it took! I guess we all need a break every now and then. Well this was my moment and I grabbed it with all of my hands!

That was my turning point.

Since early Summer in 2020, I’ve been making puzzles now and I’ve been fumbling my way through. I had zero experience of selling retail, especially my own products. It all went amazingly well until the summer of this year 2021. The lockdown was lifted and everyone went back to work. Plus the summer was here and people wanted to be in the garden instead of sat around the dinner table doing a jigsaw puzzle.

This hurt my business massively because I’d been led down the path of abundance throughout 2020 and this was very different. Less people were buying my jigsaw puzzles and I’d been caught out through ordering lots of stock and a reduction in sales. For this I have literally just had to bide my time until things picked up for me. I knew Christmas would be good for me.

Jigsaw Puzzle Leicestershire

The Horsepool, Burbage, Leicestershire

I’m finally getting around to telling you the actual point of this blog. I’ve had to be like water and flow with my business, which controls me more than I control it. I’ve become a slave to my business and I love it!

To move with the times and help my customers have a better experience, I’ve flattened my puzzle pricing out to £20 for any puzzle. I was selling them at £22 because I needed that extra bit of income to help pay for things like my office and insurance etc. When selling my artwork on the local markets, it was sometimes a bit awkward dealing with the additional coins. I’m hoping that by flattening my pricing, it might lead to more sales on the market. So far it seems to be working, let’s see how it pans out on the run up to Christmas.

If you’d like to learn more about my interactive artwork and local Leicestershire Jigsaw Puzzles, please visit my shop.

Mixing your artform with a business.

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Earning a living from selling my artwork is nothing short of amazing!

Since taking photography more seriously in 2012, I’ve spent all of that time making work for my own personal projects with no thought of making money from those photographs. Not because I didn’t want to, I just wasn’t ready and I tried, so many times and failed quickly. I taught myself that the only way I can sell my photographs as art, would be through selling prints and I did sell two prints once to the college that taught me and again to De Montfort University, who taught me my degree.

So I’m not sure if they really count?

Sileby Marina

Sileby Marina

What changed?

An incredible amount of variables led to me selling my artwork. I think the main thing was I’d collected a following on social media and with an audience, I wanted to entertain them with my artwork. I was building something that I had no clue about, I was collecting photographs that had a commercial value and I hadn’t realised it. All of it was unintentional and it steered itself with whatever exploits I got myself in to and I didn’t even know what I was doing as I took baby steps towards doing this with no agenda.
In 2019 I contacted another photographer that I know called Justin Minns, who was making really nice calendars and I felt it could be a way for me to sell my artwork.
That was one of the single most important steps I’d taken in my life because it has led to working for myself.

How it happened for me?

I began selecting photographs and designed my very first calendar and incidentally, it was the very first calendar my home town Hinckley has ever had. It went so well and it gave me a new lease of life for my photography. I was struggling with employment and wasn’t earning enough to support my family from self employment back then.

River Soar Weir

River Soar Weir

In the January of 2020 I did manage to secure myself several commissions for the year that gave me a great start and something to build on. While all this was happening, I’d got my eyes and ears on China with news of the Coronavirus coming from a bat in a wet market!!! I didn’t immediately fall for that and was suspicious from the beginning. A friend of mine was and is still living in China, teaching at a school and I stayed in contact with him during the outbreak to learn as much as I could.

Then I witnessed Covid 19 arriving in Britain and initially because of the incredible levels of fear based propaganda, I fell for it and was having panic attacks at the thought of bringing my daughter up in to this kind of world.

Lockdown was announced and many businesses closed their doors, leaving me with noone to work for. I had nothing to do, so I began working on a photography project to document what we were going through, which spilled out in to bringing community involvement in to it. I published a book with the project work in called ‘Locked Down’.

Then an opportunity to make my photographs in to 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles came along and I thought I’d give it a go but wasn’t overly sure about it at first. I made 6 designs and they all sold out online before they arrived.
So I made some more and they kept on selling out really fast.

Hinckley DIsneyland

Hinckley DIsneyland

What I did to help it along.

It felt amazing because I’d simply fallen into this and it was never a concerted effort to make a business but I’d made a business using my artwork and people were buying my work.

It just happened!

I’ve never been one to miss out on an opportunity like this one, so I began making new photographs with purpose and with a puzzling design in my mind. It became an obsessive hobby / business and still to this day I find it really challenging to find a jigsaw puzzle worthy photograph.

I learned how to do ecommerce and installed it on my website, did everything that was needed to run a smooth operation and it all seems to work.

Now I’m approaching two years since I started with that first calendar and I’ve now got a range of products to share with everyone.

While it’s amazing to be mixing my artwork with a business, it’s a challenge to find the money to pay the rent on my office and meet the demands of running a business. It changes things and even puts more pressure on making good photographs, while shortening the time I can spend making new photographs.
It’s a balancing act and one that I’ve not gotten right in many circumstances but so far I’m afloat.

There’s something to celebrate there!

Visit my shop to see what I’m offering now.

North West leicestershire Calendar 2022

It’s 2022 Calendar season!

The fantastic news is here, the NW Leics Calendar 2022 is ready to be posted out.

Tomorrow I’ll be packaging up the North West Leicestershire 2022 calendars to be distributed to all of you that have already ordered a copy, there’s plenty more available too, so don’t feel left out.

Here’s all the details…

The photographs made for this calendar have been curated from the long term documentary project Leicestershire Photographed and with assistance from the community in North West Leicestershire. I create the photographs from the landscape by using creative compositions discovered naturally in the environment. All materials used are ethically sourced and entirely recyclable.

The calendars are now ready for distribution, so if you would like one, please click on the link below.

My Favourite Jigsaw Puzzle Creation Yet!

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Sutton Wharf 1,000 Piece Fine Art Photographic Jigsaw Puzzle, Leicestershire Photographed.

This is the backstory behind the creation of what I believe to be one of my favourite and best designed jigsaw puzzle to date.

Sutton Wharf is a locally renowned beauty spot in the Leicestershire countryside and often marks the beginning, middle or end for any walks around Bosworth Battlefield. I don’t know why I hadn’t considered making a puzzle here before now but at least I’ve done it and now have almost 30 puzzles in my posession.

I first visited in the summer of 2020 to see if I could make a puzzle there, we’d just opened up after the first massive lockdown and people were out and about but I just couldn’t make the photograph work as a puzzle. I tried but couldn’t find the right composition (below).

Sutton Wharf, Leicestershire August 2020 - Failed attempt.

I needed the photograph to work, so I created a postcard design from this picture and it’s been very popular already. People haven’t really seen the one I’ve chosen to become a jigsaw puzzle yet, until now!

I wasn’t happy that I hadn’t found a jigsaw puzzle but all wasn’t lost because I’d bought a new camera, the Panasonic Lumix TZ200 and planned to return.

Now this camera is something I’d been searching for, for a long time and I didn’t realise it existed until I’d finally took the plunge to do some deep searching. I needed a camera with a good quality lens, big sensor, a wide range of focal lengths and be small enough to fit in my pocket because I was fed up with carrying my huge dslr and massive lens around with me. The sheer size of it drew a lot of attention to myself, which was not really good nor safe for me to do my latest project Leicestershire Photographed.

Now I can move around relatively unseen and still produce better photographs with enough pixel power to be useful as my art products.

I have the Lumix now and I’m getting very comfortable with it. This is the first jigsaw puzzle I’ve created with my new camera and I have to say that it’s so good to use. I was able to get the right focal length I needed and enough clarity and sharpness to convert in to a puzzle.

Here it is….

Sutton Wharf 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle

All the ingredients were in place for me, not immediately but I stood balanced on top of the bridge railings for about 10-15 minutes watching and waiting for everything to come together. The light needed to change and the right people had to walk in and out of the frame so the puzzle was ready. I also had to work out the composition while balanced on top of the bridge and that was a bit nerve wracking, I just didn’t look down.

Isn’t it amazing what a difference a slight move and angle change makes?

Sutton Wharf 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle is now available and in stock. So you can either order online or come and see me on the market stall in Hinckley every Saturday or Market Harborough every Tuesday.

Ps/ You might also catch me at one of the local car boot sales this weekend.

Click below to order online.

Raising Funds For The Fire Fighters Charity

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Lancaster Road Fire Station, Leicester.

Recently I’ve been collaborating with Firefighters from Leicestershire Fire Service to produce a jigsaw puzzle of the historical central fire station at Lancaster Road in Leicester.

In connection with my latest photographic project where I’m touring the county of Leicestershire to document people and place in a bid to cover the entire county recording life as it is today for future generations to refer back to historically. I’ve collaborating with the Firefighters to create a photographic jigsaw puzzle for the purposes of creating awareness and raising funds for The Fire Fighters Charity.

Lancaster Road Fire Station, Leicester - 500 & 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle.

The jigsaw puzzles have began their production journey, which starts with the idea, going out to make the actual photograph, which took three attempts at getting the composition right, the light and positioning of the appliances. Then the photograph goes through post production to ensure the colour and presentation is suitable before sending to my suppliers who then design the boxes.

Although on this occasion there’s been the added communication with the Firefighters and The Fire Fighters Charity.

The prints are then made and pressed on to a 1.5mm puzzle board before being cut in to the individual shapes. The puzzle pieces are then bagged and sealed, put in to the right boxes and then shipped to me for distribution to you.

This process takes an average of 4 weeks.

The Fire Fighters Charity provide confidential, personalised support to the whole of the fire services community, delivering mental health, physical health and social wellbeing services at their centres, remotely, online and in communities around the UK. Championing the health and wellbeing of all those they support - serving, retired or dependant - They exist to support all fire and rescue service personnel, whatever their role in the service. They’re also here for all those who have retired, as well as for spouses and qualifying dependants.

The Fire Fighters Charity provide confidential, personalised support to the whole of the fire services community, delivering mental health, physical health and social wellbeing services at their centres, remotely, online and in communities around the UK. Championing the health and wellbeing of all those they support - serving, retired or dependant - They exist to support all fire and rescue service personnel, whatever their role in the service. They’re also here for all those who have retired, as well as for spouses and qualifying dependants.

I’ve started off by ordering a small quantity to test the market - 10 x 500 pieces and 20 x 1,000 pieces.

I fully expect the first batch to have sold out long before the puzzles arrive. I will of course be ordering more but each time a new order is placed, it can take a while before I get to see stable stock. So it’s recommended that if you would like one of these jigsaw puzzles, then please get your order in asap.

The puzzles come out during my Spring/Summer sale where all puzzles are £20, which includes a £2 donation towards The Fire Fighters Charity.

If you’re feeling generous, you can pay £23 for the puzzle where you’ll also get a free postcard of Lancaster Road Fire Station and £5 will be donated towards the cause.

Place your order for a jigsaw puzzle using the product link below…

500 & 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle - Lancaster Road Fire Station 500 & 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle - Lancaster Road Fire Station 500 & 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle - Lancaster Road Fire Station
Sale
500 & 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle - Lancaster Road Fire Station
£10.00 £25.00
Donate to The Fire Fighters Charity
LP Logo copy.jpg

Project

using photography

Kicking Off In 2021 With Brand New Jigsaw Puzzle Designs

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Let’s Start 2021 With Four

Brand New Jigsaw Puzzle Designs.

“My choices are to sit back and wait for things to happen or I can get my head in to gear and make a start now.”

We’re in the second week of January 2021 and I’d been worried about promoting my puzzles during this month because I know everyone has just gone through Christmas and if most people are anything like my family, they’ll not have a lot of money in this month. When I used to have a job, I always spent January living on toast, waiting for the end of the month to get just enough money to see me through to the next month end.

Hinckley, VE Day 2021, 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle

The above photograph (Hinckley, VE Day 2021), I created during the first lockdown in 2020. When the virus reached Britain, I was genuinely frightened and worried what kind of life my little girl would have being brought in to this world. Then in one swoop, all of my clients revoked the work they’d assigned to me for 2020. Overnight, my business disappeared and up on looking at the future landscape, I couldn’t see it changing anytime soon. So I started making jigsaw puzzles from the archives I’d created for my project Hinckley & Burbage Photographed.
So the first lockdown kicked in and I pulled my daughter out of Nursery, keeping her safe at home and we did lot’s of cycling trips. I always took my camera with me and documented what I was seeing around the town. One evening I had a brain wave, which hurt a little but it was destined to lead me on to a very bright pathway.

I began a window portrait documentary, recording stories of people that were in lockdown and how they were surviving. It was a brilliantly fun project to do that enabled me to do something for the community. Also during that first lockdown was the 75th anniversary of VE Day. Many people came to their front gardens to socialise with others from a distance, safely to keep their community spirits alive and I spent the day riding around Hinckley & Burbage with my little girl to see what photographs I could make.
I found this photograph above and it’s also featured in my colouring book and now a 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle.

Aston Lane, Burbage, 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle

I’ve been waiting since 2017 for some snow. The last decent photograph I made in the snow was ‘The Horsepool’, which has featured heavily in my 202 products as the december picture in my 2021 calendar, my most popular Christmas card and my most popular Jigsaw Puzzle.
Well, about two weeks ago, we had a little sprinkling, that had me racing around both Hinckley & Burbage and as much of the Leicestershire county that I could squeeze in before it melted.

I initially headed straight for the centre of Burbage to see what I could find. It’s difficult for me because I’ve spent so much time walking around the same places trying to see if I can make something better than the last time. I created loads of photographs around by St. Catherine’s Church, down by The Horsepool and all around the centre and eventually came back to Aston Lane. I’d already made a few photographs here and received great feedback telling me that they’d love to do a puzzle of this scene but I could never get a satisfactory composition or at least one that lit my own fire.

It has to meet my own approval before you even see it.

This one worked for me, I have faith. So it is now in production along with the other three puzzles I’ve started this years campaign with.

Beautiful Blackfordby 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle

On October 13th 2020, I started a new project called ‘Leicestershire Photographed’ because my supplier mentioned to me that he needed someone to cover the entire county and not just Hinckley & Burbage. If I didn’t take it on, they’d give it to someone else that would. Could you imagine me having someone else on my doorstep covering Leicestershire for jigsaw puzzles and calendars and all the other stuff I’ve started making. There’d be a lot of trouble and problems with boundaries etc.

So it was just easier if I took it on myself.
I did just that!

Now I have a new a massive project that is gonna take up a lot of my time in the future but pay me huge dividends in terms of earning a wage to support my family, although weirdly enough, I never really think of earning money. My first thoughts are always on making the best photographs I can. What I earn from them afterwards is simply a bonus that allows me to keep doing this.
I produced my first two puzzles last year; The Old House, Cadeby and The Mews in Ashby De La Zouch, which have both been incredible. What a way to start the new project.

Now I’ve created two more jigsaw puzzles for the Leicestershire Photographed project, including the one above, Beautiful Blackfordby.

Blackfordby is a tiny village, hidden in the far North West corner of Leicestershire, near to Ashby De La Zouch.

The Mews, Ashby De La Zouch

The Old House, Cadeby

My fourth puzzle to be created in this jump start to 2021 is The Plough Inn and Smithards, Ashby. I sought collaboration in choosing this puzzle from the residents and members of a social media group called ‘Ashby De La Zouch Community’. This group has been amazing and instrumental in helping me get my message to the community of Ashby and beyond, for which I’m very grateful.
I feel like I have a nice strong audience in Ashby De La Zouch that have faith in me already and have been buying lots of my jigsaw puzzles. I’ve warmed to that community very easily and plan to do many special things for them over the coming year with some new product releases once I’ve built a big enough archive of pictures around their area.

The Plough Inn and Smithards, Ashby.

I think I may have written enough now. I hope I’ve got my point across. I simply wanted to share my new jigsaw puzzles with you and also give you an insight in to my thoughts. I’m so very proud of these jigsaw puzzles and even more happy at how many people have bought them. It really does make me feel like my work is appreciated because for 8 years leading up to this point, my work was just digital photographs on Facebook. I had no real substance and no end goal. All I did was keep making work for enjoyment, not knowing if any of it would go anywhere or achieve anything. I’d even got to the point where I was close to packing it al in and go out to get a job. I’d tried knocking on all the doors I could find in the industry but all I could ever come up with was earning from commercial photography and filmmaking. Of course that’s all great but my heart was always with the artwork. So now you see me doing well with all of these art products, believe me when I say this, it was never this good. I’ve been through so much hardship on the way here. Even borrowing some money to do a weekly shop one time.
This has all been a long time coming and now I’m doing it, I’ve made myself a job from my artwork and boy does it feel great. I hope I can continue to keep making work that you love and are happy to buy because mine and my families lives depend on it.
Thank you and please sign up to join me and watch me grow as an artist.

Link to view my jigsaw puzzle designs and place any orders.

New 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle Design

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The Mews, Ashby De La Zouch

1,000 Piece Real Photographic Jigsaw Puzzle

This article discusses a new 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle design that I’ve recently created, making the twelfth puzzle design in my series and only the second one from the project Leicestershire Photographed.

The Mews, Ashby De La Zouch - 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle

Leicestershire Photographed.

You might be aware already that I’ve started a massive project ‘Leicestershire Photographed’, where I plan to document the landscape across the entire county of Leicestershire. Along the way I’ll be on the lookout for pictures that might be worthy of going in to an adults colouring book, Christmas Cards, Framed Prints or my new calendar in the making for Leicestershire. Also (and of course), I’m searching for photographs that I can create jigsaw puzzles from and I think I’ve found another one for this project.

“So far…….
I’ve driven to quite a few places and covered 262.6 miles, collecting 178 Photographs and have created 2 x 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzles.”
— Paul Hands

The Mews in Ashby De La Zouch.
Since starting the project, I’ve been to Aston Flamville, Bruntingthorpe, Cadeby, Cosby, Desford, Heather, Kirby Muxloe, Lutterworth, Marefield, Market Bosworth, Peatling Magna, Potters Marston, Shenton, South Croxton, Stoney Stanton, Twyford, Watery Gate and Willoughby Watersley. I only started the project on October 13th, which in hindsight, I should have perhaps gone for a different date, so I’m not celebrating any birthdays on Friday 13th, but I will be!

The Old House, Cadeby

The very first jigsaw puzzle I’ve created for the Leicestershire Photographed project, is The Old house in Cadeby. I now have two jigsaw puzzle designs from this project and twelve in total, when including the designs from ‘Hinckley & Burbage Photographed’.

Here’s an example (above) of the box designs and the shapes of the puzzle pieces. The puzzle design shown here is of St. Catherine’s Church, Burbage, which has been one of my most popular jigsaw puzzles.
I only began making jigsaw puzzles in March of this year and all because of the lockdown. I lost all of my commissioned work that was set up for the year and didn’t really know how to get around the situation. I had nothing but photographs sitting on my hard drive that had come from my Hinckley & Burbage Photographed project, which I started in 2012. As you might imagine, I’d collected loads, over ten thousand.

I had to innovate, so I began by turning 6 photographs into jigsaw puzzles and began advertising them online in my website shop and shared them on social media. Oh my days, it was incredible. It was one of the single most important decisions I’d ever made in my life because my business boomed from that moment onwards.
I didn’t realise I had a proper product business like this and it surprised me, coming from nowhere.
Now I’m on a mission to replicate Hinckley & Burbage Photographed but for the entire county of Leicestershire.
It’s started off quite well, with two real photographic jigsaw puzzle designs within the first month.

Leicestershire Photographed Logo.jpg

The Mews, Ashby De La Zouch is my latest release and I’ve managed to get it in before the Christmas delivery cut off date. So they’ll be here in the first week of December. I’ve only ordered 20 x jigsaw puzzles, so these are a limited edition. Also for the first 7 days only, these are reduced from £22 to £20 on pre-order.
They’re available to order in my online shop, which is accessible by this product link below.

Locked Down Again!

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What Do I Do With Myself?

Since the British Government have decided to lock us down again, I’ve found myself becoming at another loose end.

In March 2020, as you know, the British Government announced our first ever lockdown, to hide from the Coronavirus and it went on for months. I lost all of my commissioned work but managed to innovate and learned some pretty cool things about myself. I didn’t sit back and watch what was going on, I took a good long hard look at myself and worked out what I had, what I can do and figured out a way around this mess.

The first thing I did was react visually with my camera because I didn’t really know what to do if the truth be told. So I went out and made some photographs and then put them all together in to a film with some cool voice overs and music to suit.

This film attracted a lot of attention but it wasn’t the ending for me. I’d got an idea in the back of my mind to document this harrowing time as a once in a lifetime opportunity. I wasn’t going to waste a minute more of my creative life.

I asked the question to my audience on Hinckley & Burbage Photographed, ‘Would anybody be interested in taking part in a project where I make photographs of you through your front windows (maintaining social distancing) and then interview you with a view to creating a book?’
Immediately I had a few responses from people who were genuinely interested. I didn’t realise the gravity of the task or the situation as I asked, but I went through with it and I was almost led by the project and not by me, like I was just the vehicle for other peoples stories.
Before I could say Global Coronavirus Pandemic, I’d built a big and growing body of work, which you can view it all here.

Here’s 9 photographs that feature in the book ‘Locked Down’.

The book has been amazing for me and everyone involved. I’m still selling copies of the book, which you can find in my shop or via this link…

Sales of my book began to drop off as people began to emerge from isolation and went back to work. During the whole time I had also turned some of the photographs from my archives in to Jigsaw Puzzles, which have been amazingly popular. I’ve even brought out a colouring book, featuring 20 photographs from my collection. As my online sales stopped going so crazy, I realised that I needed to continue to do something so I can earn a living because I’ve got a little girl at home that needs a good life, she deserves it, so I had to get a grip and earn a wage. With no commissioned work, I only had my catalogue of photographs to use but luckily, I’d grown that catalogue to over ten thousand pictures of local places and events.

So I designed everything I would need to run a market stall on the local market in Hinckley and even managed to gain a sponsor who supported me through starting up. Jamie from Brookfield Signs & Graphics.

Leicestershire photographed

However, the Government announced a new lockdown for the whole of November, so I was back on the sofa, thinking of what to do. I didn’t want to repeat myself and do the same project again because that wouldn’t be creative in my eyes.
I decided to embark on a massive journey to document the entire county of Leicestershire in the same way I’ve done with Hinckley & Burbage Photographed. Leicestershire Photographed has been born.
I plan to do with this what I’ve learned after 9 years of the other project. Except this time I’m starting with the idea of making tangible products along the way and have already created my first 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle, The Old House, Cadeby.

The Old House, Cadeby - 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle

I’m quite excited about my artwork now because all along, I’d been doing commissioned photography and filmmaking to earn a living, which was fantastic but I really only wanted to make my artwork and now the dream is becoming a reality for me on a full time basis. So developing my skills to cover the whole county of Leicestershire is a massive task but one I’m enjoying so much. It would be great if you could follow the project on social media. Use this link to the Facebook page and hit follow.

I’ve now got loads of products available for sale using my artwork now and if you haven’t seen them yet, please go and have a look at my online shop.
I’ve got 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzles, Adults Colouring Books, , 2021 Calendars, Christmas Cards and Framed Prints.
I’m hoping that Boris Johnson will be kind and actually open up the country again on December the 2nd, then I can get back to work and rnu my market stall. I’ve even got a van lined up to buy ready to help me move my stock around because it’s been a right royal pain in the arse folding down the car seats and loading everything I can squeeze in to the car. I feel like I’ve got a valid business for once and it’s all from my biggest passion, photography.

Hinckley & Burbage Photographed Is Going To Market

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Developing An Art Project

I’m expanding the Hinckley & Burbage Photographed project to have a physical shop front on Hinckley’s traditional market.

For quite a few years now, my project Hinckley & Burbage Photographed has been going through some major transformations. I’ve gone from making photography for fun and to practice the art since the project began in 2012 to selling art products with my photographs in 2020.
The journey has been wholly experimental, pushing myself to always do better next time.
Last year in 2019 I produced the very first calendar for Hinckley in Leicestershire, the first the town had ever seen. It all started when I discovered a supplier that operated a special scheme for photographers to produce calendars, where they only allow one per area and create incredibly good quality products.

I never intended this project to make money and it was always about the community, documenting life and the environment surrounding us and enjoying the connection between our environment, photography and humanity.

Life has changed already for many of us experiencing this new Covid world. Much the same for myself in losing all of my commissioned work for the year and haven’t earned anything, also falling through the cracks of self employment grants. I began to innovate and developed a new product range from the one thing I did have; an archive of photographs.
When I produced my first calendar for 2020, I never thought for a minute that they’d be the least written on calendars of all time!

As time has progressed, my suppliers have introduced 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzles to their product line, which I went straight ahead and created my first series.

I now have 9 puzzle designs available, which can be found in my online shop…

The puzzles have really taken off and has had an influence on my style of photography. To make good puzzles, I”ve had to learn what makes a good puzzle and then translate that in to the physical landscape. It’s a tough challenge to find good ideas and I’m really enjoying the journey.
I have two collections and 9 different designs. Some of the designs work better than others and all have a puzzle rating of between 5 and 10. I think I have one puzzle that reaches 10 on the puzzle scale, which is Hollycroft Park. It’s supposed to be very difficult because of the tones, colours and shapes in the puzzle. It was one of my first ones and since then I’ve created and developed new designs that really have caught the attention of a new local audience.

This next puzzle in particular is has already started selling on a pre ordering system.

The Horsepool in Burbage.

This particular puzzle is a beautiful romantic wintery scene with snow and Christmas lights decorating the scene.

The Horsepool, Burbage, Leicestershire.

Market Stall

I’ve been building stock levels, investing in the idea of selling my new products on a market stall in Hinckley every Saturday and possibly in the week on a Friday or a Monday on occassions.

I’ll also be selling my latest calendar for 2021 on the stall.

Jamie Hunt, owner of Brookfield Signs & Graphics has agreed a deal to sponsor Hinckley & Burbage Photographed and donated this banner to use on the front of the stall.

Myself and Jamie Hunt from Brookfield Signs & Graphics, who has become a sponsor of Hinckley & Burbage Photographed. Jamie has donated this banner to help with the aesthetics of my new market stall venture.

Myself and Jamie Hunt from Brookfield Signs & Graphics, who has become a sponsor of Hinckley & Burbage Photographed. Jamie has donated this banner to help with the aesthetics of my new market stall venture.

The Cover to my new 2021 calendar.

Visit my online shop to purchase a calendar.

I’ve also created a book called Locked Down, which is a collection of portraits showing 36 different families through their windows, juxtaposing them against the reflections the world their locked away from, during the Global Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020. Accompanied with personal text about how they’re all surviving lockdown and what their thoughts were surrounding the major events as the virus broke out in the UK.

Locked Down Book

I hope to see you on the market soon.