My Creative Everyday

London 2022 – a year in review by Ellie M Blake I created this video on YouTube about the year 2022. One of my goals was to develop my creativity skills in design, visual media, editing and production. I'm still much more comfortable with words, but I can see that I am making progress in my knowledge and experience in photography. So this is a recap of 2022 ... I came upon some pet dwarf rabbits early in the New Year in King Edward Memorial Park in Wapping. The winter felt extra cold. Thankfully, the daffodils arrived, heralding Spring. The birds were singing and the ducklings were swimming. The lambs wandered and grazed in the fields at Mudchute Farm. The Mile End baby geese on Regent’s canal were a comical bunch, restless and playful. Queen Elizabeth II’s platinum Jubilee military flypass was a wonderful sight, while lying in the grass in London Fields in Hackney. The summer was long with some exceptionally hot days in the high 30s, which demanded excessive consumption of ice

I have always loved butterflies. They are so colourful, and the way they move is so different to other flying creatures.As part of my photo-a-day project, I was delighted to discover how many different species of butterfly visit our garden. Recently, a citrus swallowtail butterfly flitted through our garden. The first thing I learned about these butterflies, before I could even identify one for the first time, is that they don’t… sit… still. As butterflies go, they are some of the hardest to photograph because of that. But on that day, a member of this illusive species flitted around for long enough that I could get some good photos. I tracked the butterfly from branch to branch, focusing as fast as I could and snapping photos hoping some would be useable. It was exhilarating. I was in the zone. When the butterfly decided to fly away, and I could finally relax again, I realised just how far I have come since March 2020. In the past 12 months alone, I have taken about 11,000 photographs