At the end of the year I like to look back and see my progress from twelve months of almost continuous photography.  This year, 2012, has been exceptionally heavy on music photography which is nothing I am regretful about in the slightest.  To provide a bit of background, my first time photographing music was at the Wall of Rock 2011 when I ended up staying a lot longer than planned after becoming hooked in music photography.  My first large scale venue shooting followed that December when Kassidy were kind enough to allow me to join the press photographers at the Inverness Ironworks and add to my portfolio.  Through this I met Al 'Houdi' Donnelly, a photographer who is concentrated on the Inverness music scene and it's local acts who kept me straight and made me sure of the do's and don't 's of music photography from the press pit.  That's enough about 2011..

Fast forward to January 2012, not very far I know but just wanting to clarify the beginning of this year's documentation.  The month started slowly with a couple of sports shoots and a small walk through Elgin with my Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D lens I had acquired late in 2011.  The highlight of January however was a couple of days photography at the end of the month where the conditions all came together when I was down at RAF Lossiemouth for a couple of days at the fence post exam leave.  I had been after sunset photos for a long time and never really captured the shot I wanted until January 30th when one Tornado arrived back at the right time and continued circuiting into dusk when the skies colours grew ever vibrant before fading into the black of night.  The resulting photo also made it into Flickr's 'Explore' and had an avalanche of comments and favourites - an amount extremely rare to me.

Another quiet month followed, February, it was not without its significance however.  Resulting discussions from Inverness GiGs saw me join their hard-working team as photographer in their coverage of all things music in and around Inverness.  This was a massive bonus for my music photography and at the beginning of February I ventured to Inverness Ironworks (a place I would grow familiar with more and more over the next few months) to photograph Rachel Sermanni, an excellent singer songwriter from nearby Carrbridge - well, fairly nearby!  It was a surreal setting though as instead of being a stage with people crowded behind a barrier there were tables with chairs for the crowd to sit down and soak up the atmosphere.

Moving swiftly onto March where I re-visited Inverness Ironworks, this time for the camera pointing at Sound of Guns and their support, Parma Violets, who were excellent.  This time the stage was on the ground and there was no press pit so it was much more difficult than any other gig I had photographed before because you were battling with the cloud.  Not a lot else happened in March, it was the calm before the storm.

By the storm, I mean April, one of the busiest months in the year.  First of all came a day of heavy snowfall which made for some interesting photos when I walked to Brumley Brae.  Next up was the main event with exercise Joint Warrior 12-1 kicking off and me on my Easter holidays I spent a lot of time down at the base trying to catch the US Navy's P-8A Poseidon which was deployed overseas for the first time.  On the first Wednesday an excellent enthusiast's day was organised by the station commander Gp Cpt Ian Gale and his team at RAF Lossiemouth, it was an excellent day and we were lucky enough to visit every aircraft present on the active station.  The month was ended by what was becoming a regular monthly visit to the Ironworks, this time for Miles Kane!  April also saw my first image published in an aviation magazine which I was pretty happy with.

With exams during May it was a pretty quiet month.  Well, photography wise, my concentration was lacking when the Tornado role demo team began their work up but luckily I managed to catch a few of the practices when the weather was good and I wanted a break from revision.  The Pigeon Detectives at the Ironworks were another highlight, I've never seen a frontman move about a stage quite so much.

June was the start of the busy Summer months.  In the first week my uncle took me and one of his friends up to the Oban Airport fly-in, after leaving Easterton in fairly average and blustery conditions it came as a relief that as we approached Inverness the clouds began to disappear gradually as we neared Oban, as you can imagine the scenery was something else.  Next up comes Rockness, I was both nervous and excited about covering the event for Inverness GiGs, it seemed like a daunting prospect at first but once the weekend had started I never wanted to leave.  After teaming up with the Nut Productions teams I ended up in some lovely places with them and some excellent artists for interviews, live sessions and to challenge them at ball in a cup.

I ended the month at the Waddington Airshow in Lincolnshire which over spilled into July and airshow season.  The Korean's Black Eagles display team were a definite highlight for Waddington and RIAT whilst the smoky Polish MiG-29 and brilliant Swiss F/A-18 demos at RIAT and Waddington respectively deserved their own individual merit alongside the oddly shaped B-2A Spirit, or Stealth Bomber, which was heavily guarded by armed police all weekend.  Whilst airshow season is a good time to enjoy the displays it was also amazing to be able to see everyone who made the fortnight south of the border a good laugh with Kempsford pub crawls, REAL Mountain Dew and the beloved American burger stall.

It was back to my tent in August with the weekend at Belladrum Tartan Heart festival.  Blessed with sunshine and warm temperatures pretty much all weekend it was a definite highlight of 2012 as I was surrounded by friends, good music and a cracking atmosphere.  A shock highlight was photographing Zombie Militia, not the best way to cure a sore head as they opened the hothouse that day but they provided a lot of great photo opportunities.  Other highlights were Vintage Trouble, Rae Morris and Bombskare - all proving the wide range of acts at the festival.  A welcome addition to the month was a visit to Tain to see USAF F-15E Strike Eagles bombing and strafing the range.

In September I relocated to Edinburgh to start university at Edinburgh Napier University studying Interactive Media Design.  It was a quiet month for the camera as I spent a lot of it socialising trying to create new friends in a new city and fending for myself.

But October was a bit heavier on the shutter as a combination of Joint Warrior 12-2 and Qualified Weapons Instructors Course arrived at RAF Lossiemouth which meant Swedish Gripens, plenty of Typhoons amongst other visitors.  Another excellent enthusiast's day was held with again great weather only marred slightly by a large cloud during departures.  A day with heavy fog in Edinburgh also provided my first good city scenes that I really enjoyed.

Beautiful colours from a November sunset made for some great photos at RAF Lossiemouth as the sky went from blue, to red, to pink as darkness fell.  At the end of the month the 'Winter Wonderland' and German market arrived and provided some nice photos in a fairly compact environment as people squeezed through the crowds.  By favourite photo of the month came on the last day, St. Andrews day, when Edinburgh Castle was free entry and I went up with a friend and we captured photos of the Winter Wonderland from an elevated position on a freezing cold evening.

The temperatures rose in December, which meant no snowfall.  This, plus lots of coursework meant I didn't really get much chance to take photos.  I attended a couple of nights function shooting at Easter Road including photographing the food, which I subsequently was allowed to eat - bonus!  After that it was back up the road to Elgin for Christmas and New Year to see my family and friends back home. 

I'm not going to lie, it was a struggle to condense a year's worth of experiences into a readable amount.  There's quite a lot I haven't been able to include and probably plenty which have skipped my mind completely.  It was an excellent year though, both for my life in general and photographically.  I hope 2013 continues where 2012 has left off.

I'd like to say thanks to everyone who I have met over the twelve months, those who have assisted or provided opportunities and also to those who have been friendly and had a good laugh with me.  It's what makes it such a worthwhile and enjoyable hobby.  Cheers!

Okay, I'll pause David Bowie for a second.

In 2013 I will be making a few key changes to how I run my websites, Facebook and Twitter feeds.  As I try to breakthrough in the world of event, nightlife and music photography professionally in Edinburgh next year I need to present a more professional look uncluttered by my personal hobby photography such as my aviation and random walks I sometimes take.  So here's a quick run down of what's going to happen and what account will do what:

Firstly, I will be re-branding as 'Chris Milne Photography', there are a couple of big reasons for this.  Firstly, it is much easier to remember and track down a name rather than a nickname - especially on Google.  It also means that people will know, and remember my name which helps with word of mouth to both people and businesses alike.

For aviation forums, I will still go under 'Macc/Maccphoto' etc;, and I may well have a seperate watermark for aviation shots as I will be keeping the 'Maccphoto' page as a blog and mainly aviation/candid photography website.  This means I'll probably be less serious and try include a lot more humour and babble amongst the facts in my blogpost.

As for social media accounts I will be sending a lot more 'Maccphoto' related tweets under my @ItsChrisMilne account which is a more personal account.  Once I have the 'Chris Milne Photography' webpage set-up and properly underway I might create a specialized account for it, which will pretty much just be a professional account with the odd link and photo.  In terms of Facebook pages it's going to be pretty similar although I've already just opened the 'Chris Milne Photography' one, the 'Maccphoto' page will mainly just be aviation photography and a few candid street photos.  My Tumblr page will be untouched, as it's pretty much just a stream of photos I've uploaded to Flickr.

So yeah, I think that's about it!  Trying to professionalise half my photography and keep the social side up on the other.

Sadly no snow yet, but the Christmas lights have been turned on and can be seen all around the city in addition to the market at the square with lots of little souvenirs and foreign food which usually tastes as good as it smells.  There is also the 'winter wonderland' with the ferris wheel and ice rink as well as lots of other attractions.

Also, St. Andrews day meant that there was free entry to Edinburgh Castle all day, so me and my friend Graham decided to go and see what we could take up there and it turned out to be quite a lot as we captured the ferris wheel going around from up high - we didn't have tripods but we used walls and fences to keep our cameras still in place and fire off 6 second exposures.

Hopefully we get some snow soon, I'm starting to feel festive already.  I've already got one of those ridiculously cheesy Christmas jumpers and blasting out Wham and Slade.  Too soon?  I think not.

Decided to head home for a few days last week and took my camera with me, ended up having the best part of a day at RAF Lossiemouth where I had a pretty dismal morning but then an excellent afternoon, after that I managed a few photos at Findhorn when I went for a walk with my Mum there.

On my trip to Lossie I expected a busy day's flying with all three squadrons on station, plus a detachment of three Hawk T2s from RAF Valley in Wales.  When I arrived it was cold, cloudy and worst of all, quiet  with very little seeming to be flying.  It didn't pick up very much before me and my Dad left for lunch but as we arrived home for a break and something to eat the cloud disintegrated and so I went back down after lunch for the afternoon.  Arriving about half two the 'golden hour' was already in full swing and there were already a few Tornados up with a few more prepping.  The Hawks were also readying for a flight and most of the wave of aircraft departed around 3 which meant there recovery would probably be in the dark sadly so I wasn't sure if I'd wait.   As the last aircraft departed the aircraft already out started to return, including a jet with no wing tanks or pods on an air test which gave a pretty late low approach and belted back into the circuit.  Although there were no clouds like often the best sunsets include, the sky was very clear so the colours were extremely vivid.  I ended up staying until after the sun fell below the horizon and caught the Hawks coming back with very little light off them.

My afternoon at Findhorn was also very nice, we started with a walk past the mooring area and both north and south ports, then after a visit to the cafe with a brilliant bacon & egg roll (the yolk burst as usual, not all over me though, which was nice..)  Afterwards we continued past the anchorage for short term visiting yachts and then round to the windsock and unusually named e'ee.  By this point, the sunset had lit up the clouds which were reflecting in the Findhorn basin.

It was only around two months ago that I walked into my student accommodation for the first time having left Elgin starting my university course.  Until just recently I had a netbook which was near death and my desktop was left at home so I had no editing software so I haven't got round to taking my photos yet.  I've been to a fair few places like the Scott Monument, the Grassmarket and Princes' Street gardens.

Two attempts to ascend Arthur's Seat have gone wrong, the first had us waiting too long and then the weather closing in forcing us to retreat (to the pub, where else!)  The second, on Bonfire Night was marred by us losing track of time and our punctuality, the poor decision to climb up the grassy sides of the hill wasn't the finest idea either.  I will make it up there one day - or one night.

The foggy photos were from my walk back from university one day in October where it was so foggy that we could hardly see anything anywhere, which was great because the further you would walk, the more would appear.

Student life is living up to what I expected though, which is great.  I especially love staying in student accommodation where you can go and visit your friends so easily.

And as for Edinburgh, what a place!  Can't wait to go exploring, I look forward to the next four years!