I took barely any photos in 2012, with one thing and another wrestling themselves between me and the camera. Between me and the time. Next year may be better; it may be the same. Who knows. I’m too much of a self-saboteur for resolutions, and perhaps too much of a realist, too.

But here’s a handful of the pictures I did find the time to take this year, often at the kitchen table, often on the iphone, and then finally – gloriously – on a trip to Cuba.

Happy new year!

Images © 2012 Sophie Goldsworthy. All rights reserved.

An enchanting exhibition opened its doors last week, for a tantalisingly short run, bang in the heart of Oxford. The Story Museum will officially open in 2014, bringing to new life the sprawling floors of the old post office and telephone exchange in Rochester House, on Pembroke Street. But now and again, before its metamorphosis is complete, there will be a chance to glimpse the magic that lies behind its doors. I had the chance to take some pictures there when it was still pretty much untouched – after years lying empty, watched over only by pigeons – and the building is still in a state of utterly charming dishevelment.

The Other Worlds exhibition features a lovely series of offbeat rooms, where artists and writers have collaborated to create something headily idiosyncratic for the young, or just the young-at-heart. Rummage for an envelope in the Queen of Found Objects’ secret store room, and you can take your object home and write a story about it, to send back in. Shelter from the rain in the Word Storm, and see what happens to those who get trapped in a raindrop. Add your own ideas into the half-finished story on a battered old typewriter; write a letter to your future self in the Time Traveller’s Bureau (which will arrive on your doormat in a year’s time); scrawl something you’ve never told anyone in the Your Secret’s Safe room. Or simply opt instead to pick a numbered key and unlock a box containing someone else’s secrets. Don’t say you’ve never been tempted.

You can even note down some of the much-missed items you’ve mislaid over the years, for Eileen, the Keeper of Lost Things, to try to track down and return to you, while revelling in the ephemera already stashed in her room to be reunited with its owners. Although frankly she’ll have a job returning some of the items being rather joyously added to the list by visitors (my mum’s marbles, my mojo, my heart; you know who you are. And that 6-foot badger that answers to Frank? Maybe you just haven’t looked hard enough. Where did you last see him?). Or climb up the attic ladder and look through a periscope to see just how GPO maintenance man Bob spends his fag breaks. (All family friendly, guaranteed.) Here even the notices are whimsical – announcing ‘dragons only allowed to smoke in courtyard’, or that ‘absolutely nothing will happen if you pull this cord’ (I defy you not to pull it). And so on. A world away from the normal list of don’ts in most museums.

From the gloriously voluptuous mural of Story Angels curving their way around the entrance archway to the emptiness of a solitary swing hanging in a room full of children’s voices, the lavish experiments in the National Audio Sneeze Analysis Laboratory (NASAL) to a series of pictures finding odd faces around the museum’s fixtures and fittings, there’s plenty to stimulate the imagination of even those who think their inner child has long-since outgrown short trousers and started work in a bank. And before you go in, or after you leave, check out the shop windows on Pembroke Street, offering such goodies as Fib-Buster Shrink-Nose Cream, 99 Dalmatian Puppies to a good home, Glass Slipper Polish and a Boat for Hire (for messing about on the river).

What? You need more persuading? But you’ve only got till 27 May (Thursdays thru’ Sundays, mostly afternoons; check here for the times) before the clock strikes midnight and the whole thing turns back into a pumpkin, like all the best fairytales. You know the drill.

All images © 2012 Sophie Goldsworthy. All rights reserved.

I’m not necessarily taking them every day (although, it turns out, the more you get into the habit of whipping the phone out to capture a picture the more it becomes second nature, so maybe I will be by the time the year is out), but they are all taken, edited and posted on the iPhone. There are plenty of people sharing DSLR photos on Instagram, and the great thing about IG is that anything goes, but that isn’t for me. What appeals to me most is the ease of taking and sharing pictures instantaneously, without the need for lots of kit … though I do use Photojojo’s cameraphone lenses every now and then, particularly the fisheye and macro lenses, which really do help you create some great pictures.

So, here are January’s images, above, plus one for luck (because I liked it, and am nerdy enough to *need* a full grid…). The box at the foot of this post contains pictures from late last year.

If you feel stuck for ideas, Chantelle over at fat mum slim has come up with a photo-a-day challenge, and February’s list is below. Tag your photos with #febphotoaday and you can check out what everyone else is uploading through the hashtag. I followed the January list for much of the month, but have decided simply to dip in and out of February’s as the mood takes me.

So, you have a phone full of pictures, you’re sharing them with the IG community – what next? Check out this post for some fun things to do with your images.

You can also use them to make a personalised iPhone case on Casetagram, see if there’s an InstaMeet being planned for your area (or plan your own), make 4×4″ stickers of your Instagram photos over at Instagoodies or turn them into postcards to send to your friends through the Postagram app. And there are countless other widgets: do share the ones you enjoy using most in the comments.

I’m @sophie_gee on Instagram, if you’re on there. Come and say hello.

All images © 2012 Sophie Goldsworthy. All rights reserved.

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Just before Christmas I spent a fun day with my friend Andrew going round New Covent Garden flower market, as he selected the flowers for his bouquet deliveries that week. Well, I say fun. It started at 4am for the journey up to London, and by lunchtime the early start was starting to play slight havoc with my continued sense of enjoyment. These market traders start early! In the week the market opens at 3am, and it’s all over by 11. But seeing the market in full swing was fascinating, and to be in a space so full of spring flowers and bulbs in the dark hours of a December morning uplifting. Being surrounded by tubs crammed to bursting with tulips and daffodils makes it easy to imagine spring might not be too far away. And I’d always wanted to check out the market, so this seemed like the perfect excuse.

Andrew recently launched a service delivering flowers for the weekend to homes in Vauxhall, South Lambeth and areas nearby, enabling locals to sign up to his scheme and reap the benefits of having London’s largest flower market right on their doorstep. Every Thursday morning he can be found browsing the market for something strikingly sculptural or a specific colour theme, depending on what’s in the market each week, and then he creates the week’s bouquet, and delivers the flowers on his stylish tricycle in the evening.

I like the idea of having a flower round, like the traditional milk and paper rounds, and rather envy Andrew his tricycle, which I nonetheless forgot to photograph. I blame the early start. (Did I mention that already?) You’ll have to check out his website, www.flowersfortheweekend.com, if you want to see it. There’s something really compelling about making flowers your job, about embracing the whole local ethos, about having the time and the space to create something rather lovely every week, the radio chatting away in the background, the cats at your feet. Jealousy is such an ugly emotion, I know. I prefer to say I find it inspiring.

Andrew’s bouquet the week I visited was on a Christmassy colour theme – dark velvety roses, red hypericum berries (that’s St John’s Wort to you and me, useful for anyone cast down by the festive period), twisted spirals of willow and white painted pine cones to complete the look. You can find out more at the website, or Facebook page. Or just check out the flowers, and dream of your own perfectly creative mornings.

So I thought I’d start 2012 much the way I started (and finished) 2011, photographically speaking. And with a sorry for leaving the blog unattended for a little while. The end of last year was a bit of a whirlwind, one way and another, and I guess blogging simply fell victim to my need for a bit of a break.

I spent a lot of time at this table last year. In fact, I’ve spent quite a bit of time at it so far this year, too. It’s a junk shop find, ancient and shabby. It’s had woodworm, and bears the scars of hot cups and plates (and, I must confess, my much-loved chemex, oops); it’s worn at the edges where other people have leant on it, dined off it, just sat reading the paper at it with a coffee, much as I do, weekend days. But it fits, perfectly, into my tiny, narrow Victorian terrace kitchen and it’s well-positioned for day-dreaming and gazing unseeingly into the garden (admittedly there isn’t a lot to see in the garden just now, bar the grey squirrels going around and around, and the first shoots heralding snowdrops). A space for thinking and writing, for preparing food and chatting, and just putting the world to rights over a glass of wine.

There’s almost nowhere I’d rather take a picture at the moment, even if it means sweeping a whole bunch of stuff aside (putting the world to rights comes with its own leftovers). Because the light here is just lovely. There’s nothing radical about any of this: no lighting high-jinks, no canny candids, no standing for hours in a field with cold extremities, waiting for the sky to perform its acrobatics over your landscape of choice. But it’s the perfect excuse to buy flowers, if excuse were needed. And to hang around with that coffee and the papers, just waiting for the light.

There are plenty of things I want to do with photography this year. More lighting, more landscapes. Learning how to shoot (half decent) video; to do my own framing; to process film. Planning far-flung photographic trips, and developing a couple of portrait projects closer to home. Plus keeping up with the blog (or trying to), along with some other photography-related writing. And I’m aiming to post a picture a day over on Instagram. Give me a shout if you’re on there (@sophie_gee). I’d love to know what your plans are, too: feel free to leave a comment below.

So here’s to 2012. It seems full of possibilities. If I could just force myself to get up from this table…

If you can’t contain yourself, and need a more extensive stuff-on-tables fix, well, there’s a set over here with some more. And you just know there will be others, as the year unfolds.

Images © 2011 Sophie Goldsworthy. All rights reserved.

Tracey’s Flickr stream is characterised by an obsession with waving her legs in the air (you’ll have to visit it to really appreciate this one to the full) and her pictures and accompanying writing express fierce candour about life and its ups and downs, a journey anyone who’s been following her self-portrait 365 has been on right alongside her. My admiration for her photographic creativity is matched only by my respect for the sheer graft involved in her house renovations (well, grudging respect … I mean, just how big must this house be?!), and the way she often draws the two things together.

There are many things to love about photography, of course, but something particularly special about the connections it allows you to find with other like minds. I love the daily window into Tracey’s life provided by her 365, even if I’m occasionally bemused at the turn taken by her inventiveness, and I can’t wait to see what she turns her hand to once that comes to an end. Whatever it is, it’s bound to be fun and tongue-in-cheek and full of life, and characterised by her dazzling good humour and all-round loveliness.

You can find Tracey on Flickr, or follow her daily post over on her blog. Highly recommended if you want an interesting take on the 365, some self-portrait inspiration, or just a bit of charm and good cheer. What are you waiting for? (And cheers, girl. It’s good knowing you. x)

All images © Tracey Barrow. All rights reserved.

Already it seems like a dim and distant memory, but a few weeks ago I went on a photographic trip to Puglia, in the very heel of Italy, with Light & Land. The company runs lots of exciting photography courses and trips every year, from single days in the UK to a couple of weeks long haul in spots like Kerala or Cuba. I went to Tuscany with them last year, on a trip which was also led by brilliant landscape photographers Charlie Waite and Peter Hendrie, and when Puglia was added to their list I signed straight up.

Whatever your level, and whether you’re after tuition or just want to wander off and do your own thing, if you’re a bit of a photography geek (as, let’s face it, I am) the appeal of going on a dedicated photography trip is being able to spend as long as you need getting the shot you want. You aren’t holding everyone up, you’re with a bunch of people who are similarly taking their time, absorbing the space, working out what images they want to take and exactly how they want to frame them. You may not even be the person having the nerdiest conversation at dinner. (Although you may still be that person. You’ll know by day three, when you’ve talked to everyone on the trip, and somehow your end of the table is the last to fill up.)

I tend to be impatient and impulsive, and at home I usually shoot handheld, unless I’m trying to do landscape work. My tripod weighs a tonne, and I love taking candids, so I like to be able to react quickly to what’s around me. But it’s still great to dust the tripod off every now and then: it makes you slow down and make precise adjustments to your composition before you take it, rather than shooting a card-full of images and spending hours making those tweaks on the computer back at home. When you spend your days in front of a screen, you start to savour the moments which are instead spent out there, camera in hand. And these trips aren’t (or aren’t only) for purists: there were still plenty of occasions when I left my tripod behind. Though not for the image below: a 30-second exposure that demanded a bit of a pause.

The other thing about these trips is that you’re with a group who understand your obsession; who may be even more hung up on photography than you are. Every now and then, it’s reassuring to be able to spend your downtime debating the relative merits of different lenses or focal lengths, the use of Live View and various infrared techniques. As a group, we also had the chance to check out each other’s pictures – both images taken during the week and highlights of previous travels – a great reminder not only that we all see the same scene very differently but also that you learn a great deal from your fellow photographers on these occasions, as well as from the expert leaders.

For me, the real magic this time around (apart from the local Limoncello, over which I draw a swift veil) was having the chance to wander the remote streets of the region’s occasional towns. The opportunities were plentiful, from the ancient sprawl of Sassi di Matera, with its prehistoric, troglodytic origins and houses (often little more than caves) dug into the rock itself, to any number of tiny hilltop towns with their clusters of dazzlingly-white buildings, the oddly-shaped trulli of Alberobello, and the hectically busy city of Lecce. And for someone who struggles with conventional landscapes, as I do, these cityscapes – and some of the opportunities for candids they provided – checked a lot of boxes.

You can see a few more images (including some candids) on my website and some other images from people on the trip, along with information about other trips and courses, over on the Light & Land site. And if you’ve been on a trip that inspired you in the same way, do feel free to leave a comment below.

This week’s Friday follow is my friend and fellow Flickrer Mike Stimpson, also known as Balakov. Though as far as I know he has never played football for Bulgaria.

Mike is most widely known for his creative and clever photographs of Lego, whether his rather brilliant re-creations of classic photographs, from Henri Cartier-Bresson to iconic images from the news, or exploration of the more, erm, human side of Stormtroopers. All of which he delivers with a deftness that has won his pictures no end of well-deserved attention.

Mike has a great eye for colour and for using the space, and an alarming sense of humour in devising increasingly odd situations in which his Stormtroopers might end up (who knew there were pole dancers on the Death Star?). The product of a sharp computer programming mind that has spent too much time browsing the interwebs perhaps. He’s great at lighting too – in fact, he has something of a Strobism fetish – something you can see in all of his impeccably composed shots.

You’ll find many more images over on Mike’s website, or on his Flickr stream, and he sells prints on Redbubble. If life’s looking a little grey, and you feel in need of something whimsical, colourful or sweetly funny, nip on over for a quick hit of all three.

And if you’re interested in seeing how he does it, he also has a set-ups Flickr stream, where he shows how some of his more complicated images were composed and lit.

All images © Mike Stimpson. All rights reserved.

Today I wanted to post about an exciting new book from one of the leaders of that trip, landscape photographer Charlie Waite, which will publish on 9 December. The book, called ‘Arc & Line’, marries the beautiful landscapes so familiar to fans of Charlie’s work with fine art, with 65 stunning images from around the world, in a mix of black and white and colour. If you don’t already know him, do check out his online gallery here, for a series of utterly inspirational landscapes. Most of the pictures in the book are new, though Charlie has also included some of his favourite older images, tracing the influence of the arc and line theme over his years in the field.

The book includes a personal introduction, which offers a rare glimpse into the passion and perspective of one of the world’s most renowned landscape photographers. Having been on a few trips with him, through Light & Land, I can vouch for the degree to which Charlie’s vision can utterly reinvigorate your own love of photography, and know that this book will be something rather special.

There’s a lovely limited edition of 250 Collector’s Sets coming out at the same time, which features a signed copy with authentication page, a signed A3 size print of the cover image, Mount Fuji from the Shore, and a designer presentation box to keep book and print in mint condition. You can pre-order either through the website at www.charliewaite.com. A truly beautiful Christmas gift for the landscape lover in your life. Or for yourself, if you feel you deserve a treat. And, frankly, don’t we all feel that way, now and again.

This week’s Friday follow is fellow Flickrer Tony Eccles. You may have caught some of Tony’s great images illustrating my street photography series a couple of weeks ago, and he’s a brilliant street photographer, with a wicked eye for candid juxtaposition, whether funny or poignant or just making you look at something in a different way. He’s also creative and funny and no-holds-barred in his approach to his photography more generally, and his photos will make you laugh every bit as often as they dazzle you. And he does a great line in self-portraits, too, like the two which bookend this piece.

If you want something a bit more light-hearted than the streets, but knowingly arch at the same time, Tony’s latest project is a 365 themed around tiny model railway figures, placing them in everyday situations that emphasise their smallness, and frankly letting them have a lot more fun than they ever experienced playing railways way back when. In our house, anyway.

You’ll find many more images over on Tony’s website, or on his Flickr stream. If you’re after a dash of humour, a quick trip around the absurdity of everything, or just a bunch of beautifully-observed, perfectly-captured shots, it’s a great place to go get some inspiration. What are you waiting for?

All images © Tony Eccles. All rights reserved.