2020 - the year of living dangerously. What a year! It's been our best year ever but there have been times when it's looked bleak. I was hospitalised with Covid 19 between Xmas and New Year and nearly died. Not an experience I'll easily forget. But I recovered and now even our accountant is happy!

We've worked with a number of great brands this year and produced some of my favourite photographs too. We got off to a flying start with commissions from David Austin Roses, property shoots in Spain and a bunch of product shoots only to be stopped in our tracks by Covid-19.

When lockdown was announced, in the space of 24 hours, our entire photography and video pipeline, stretching two months into the future was cancelled. It looked bleak, but when the going gets tough..

Our response to lockdown was to craft an entirely new offering based on work that I had been doing on the side for a few friends and clients. We launched Helter Skelter Design in March, providing web site design and digital marketing and to our relief, it took off like a rocket. We got our first official client to number one ranking on Google for two highly relevant keywords. We and they were delighted.

Its dangerous to talk of favourite projects, but I will anyway - we worked a lot with David Austin Roses, I love photographing flowers, especially for a client as exacting as David Austin. We calibrate our screens for every shoot, so colour reproduction is perfect. We worked with Tanner's Wine producing their Christmas catalogue. Again, I've always loved shooting wine even though I no longer drink. It was one of life's greatest pleasures and on the basis of "shoot what you love", it's a must.

We shot catalogue shots and editorial shots for designer welly specialists Poddy & Black, another repeat client whose product we absolutely love.

Tanners is one of the oldest family owned wine merchants in the country and they too absolutely love what they do. Afia Akram of Afia's Samosa Shop was one of my first professional food clients and her business has taken off in a big way - when I photographed her food the first time five years ago it was in her conservatory, now she runs a commercial kitchen and we shot a variety of food for her new web site.

We love working with enthusiasts and this year we've been lucky enough to do that often. It's inspiring and challenging in equal measure!

Finally, the year wouldn't have been so successful if it hadn't been for Security Wise of Shrewsbury. Starting with a photoshoot last December, they have put a lot of work forward for Helter Skelter Design, they are great people and we're very grateful!

Happy Christmas to all our clients and a very happy new year!