From the second that I bought the macro lens, I knew that I’d be doing some droplets at some point. I drink a lot of coffee, so it didn’t take a genius to work out what I was going to end up doing for my C picture.

I used Black Blood Of The Earth in the bottom of a shallow dish, and used a straw as a dropper. This shot was when the coffee was unadulterated – I added some condensed milk to the coffee a little later to give me some different effects (condensed milk in coffee was one of the greatest discoveries I made in Vietnam. It makes a particularly good Iced Coffee).

I love beetroot, me. After asparagus, I think it is my favourite vegetable (I am not sure why I am drawn to vegetables which have a unusual aftereffects). I am particularly partial to the the weird, Lovecraftian nature of the stalks and leaves, which I tried to capture in this series.

My Combined Christmas & Birthday Present last year was a Tokina 11-16 Ultra Wide Angle lens. At the time, my lens choices consisted of my beloved 50mm f1.4, and a rubbish Tamron 18-200 zoom (side note – I would not recommend this lens to anyone for any purpose. I genuinely think it stunted my growth as a photographer). I only ever seemed to use the zoom at its widest end, so my thinking was that I should get a proper, fast lens designed to do ‘wide’ properly. And I got that. But I got more; a lot more. So here are a few observations from a year of living the wide life.

Ultra Wide really does mean Ultra Wide

I genuinely did not appreciate how much difference a couple of millimetres makes at this focal length. In my head, 16mm was close enough to the 18mm I was shooting with the Tamron to be interchangeable. In fact, 16mm is a good bit wider than 18mm, and 11mm is a huge difference. There is a reason that these lenses are marketed as a different category; they do perform differently, and require a different set of considerations when composing.

Too Much F**king Perspective

As it turned out, the WIDTH of the scene available to be captured isn’t the most interesting attribute of the Ultrawide lens. The (initially) most problematic and (eventually) most exciting effect of these crazy optics is the DEPTH of the scene. Where long lenses squish the perspective of a shot, wide-angles stretch it out. More specifically, these lenses make the foreground really long.

So, that tree/boat/animal in the middle distance which in your mind’s shutter is going to look so awesome in the context of the spectacular panorama? You’re barely going to be able to tell it’s there (I ended up cropping a lot in the first few months to bring my intended subject more into the shot).
At 11mm, a frame centred on the horizon will include the floor from about 2 metres in front. Consequently, I found that the most effective scenes are those where the subject is in the immediate foreground, or where there is no immediate foreground. This usually means getting much closer to the subject than would usually feel natural, or composing with loads of sky. Or, as in the case of this one, getting a bit closer to the edge of a sheer drop than is perhaps desirable.

Distortion

Once I’d figured this out, I started to compose shots in my head which took advantage. This shot of The Titanics v3 seemed like a good way of getting 9 people in a picture, while managing to keep the focus on Ruth, our singer. Unfortunately, I’d neglected to take into account the distortion on the edges of the frame, which ended up not being at all flattering for Jase and Alison.

While this distortion is pretty undesirable for people, it adds drama and interest to verticals, especially buildings, which look like they’re leaning into shot.

May I be candid?

While in the crowded Ben Thanh market in Ho Chi Minh City, it occurred to me that the combination of a fast lens with a wide coverage was perfect for shooting unobtrusively from the hip. I managed to capture a number of lovely moments that would have no doubt disappeared if I’d had to raise the camera to my eye. It’s a technique I intend to use more often in the future.
When I was struggling to get to grips with it initially, I feared this might be a specialist lens with a niche application. As it turns out it stays on my camera for weeks at a time, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone looking for something a little bit different to do with their SLR.

Back in 2007 I found a recipe for Chocolate Chip and Bacon Cookies on a website called Never Bashful With Butter. I’m glad I took the recipe down, rather than relying on links, because the blog isn’t there any more.

I’ve made the cookies a few times now, refining the recipe as I go along, and am now at a point where I think it’s ready for sharing. So, in memory of Never Bashful With Butter, here it is:

Chocolate Chip and Bacon cookies (makes a batch of 24 large or 48 small cookies)

225g butter
150g soft brown sugar
150g granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg (you can add an extra egg if the dough comes out a bit dry and crumbly)
300g flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
200g dark chocolate chips
One bottle of beer, chilled. What kind doesn’t really matter, just one you like.
24 rashers thinly-sliced dry-cure streaky bacon

First, heat a grill to its highest heat and spread the bacon rashers on your grill pan so they’re not touching or overlapping. Grill the bacon rashers until they’re really crispy, turning once. You might need to do this in batches depending on the size of your grill. Remove each batch onto kitchen paper to soak up excess grease.

Set aside two rashers. You will be tempted to eat them, but resist. Once the rest have cooled sufficiently, put on some loud music and chop them into very fine pieces with a big knife. You’re aiming to get about 200g of tiny cooked bacon bits. If you are unsure of your ability to not eat the tasty tasty bacon, maybe cook a couple of extra rashers.

Preheat oven to 175 C

Beat together the butter, sugars, vanilla extract and eggs until creamy.

In another bowl, sift together the dry ingredients.

Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and stir together into a soft dough.

Add in chocolate chips and bacon bits and stir until it’s all mixed together properly.

Place dough on a sheet of greaseproof paper and refrigerate. While the fridge is open, remove the beer.

Open the beer, and have a sit down for an hour or so, enjoying the cool refreshment and sense of kitcheny accomplishment. Do not eat the two spare rashers of bacon.

Remove dough from fridge, divide into three equal pieces, then divide each piece in half, then in half again and so on until you have 24 or 48 dough blobs. Roll the dough blobs into balls, then arrange them about 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Squash your balls slightly in the middle with your fingers.

Bake cookies for about 10 minutes, or until the dough starts to turn golden brown. Remove to a cooling rack.

Maple cinnamon icing

225g icing sugar
2 tablespoon maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Take the two crispy bacon rashers left over from earlier that you haven’t eaten (you haven’t, have you?) and chop each one into 12 small pieces with a pair of scissors. This will give you 24 pieces, one for each cookie, so try not to eat any. If you’ve made the smaller cookies, just cut smaller pieces.

Mix all other icing ingredients together until smooth and creamy.

Spread a small amount of the glaze on the top of each cookie and top with your crispy bacon square.

Serve to amazed and delighted friends and colleagues.

I decided to reboot my A-Z, using my 105mm macro lens. I’m not saying I am necessarily going to restrict myself to the one lens for the whole thing, like I did last year, but I at least want to give myself that option. Also, new lens!

My theme for this year’s A-Z is food. All my previous A-Z projects have had an element of chance involved in them, a tendency towards the Sunday afternoon "Let’s wander around and see what we can find that starts with an L". I decided I wanted to do something a bit more considered this year, so I wanted a subject that would allow for the maximum amount of posing, fiddling and dressing.

I don’t eat very much fruit. Not through any particular dislike, but more because it never really occurs to me to do so. I have craved an apple exactly twice in my life, and I can remember where I was both times (Manchester and Wales, thanks for asking).

The above are all British apple varieties. The whole apples are (L-R) Jazz, Empire, Egremont Russet. The cut in half and chewed upon one is Tentation.

We spent the last three days of our honeymoon in Singapore. One of the items on our wedding list, courtesy of Ben and Lucy, was tickets for the Night Safari at Singapore Zoo, so that’s what we did on our first evening.

Once we had got through the incredibly warm hour-long queue, the safari itself was fantastic. Unfortunately, it didn’t lend itself to being photographed – the tram never stopped, which screwed up the long exposures required.

There were, however, walking paths, so after the tram finished I pottered off with my tripod to see what I could find. This is the outside of the Naracoorte Cave, which is where they keep the bats.

We spent Christmas in Nha Trang, in a very nice spa resort. The weather was supposed to be all sunny and nice, but it was actually really windy. We found out later that these were the aftershocks of a hurricane in the Philippines.

This was taken on Christmas evening, just as the wind was starting to pick up. I’d dragged a brand new tripod all the way to Vietnam and I was damn well going to use it.

Xé is Vietnamese for motorbike, the most popular form of transport for individuals, families, cargo, dogs, cattle and anything else that can be strapped to the back of them. Crossing the road is a leap of faith, just step out and walk slowly across, undeviating from your path; the bikes just flowing around you.

Most street corners in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are home to motorcycle taxis, called ‘Xé Om’. It amused me no end when I discovered that ‘Om’ means ‘to cuddle’.

My change in jobs and lifestyle also affected the way I have been listening to music. My 20-minute walk to and from work has been replaced with a 20-minute drive, which is proving much less conducive to good listening. Being immersed in an album has given way to podcasts and playlists, so some of the albums listed here have been appreciated in a sometimes random, often backwards, order. As an aside, is anyone knows a way to make Smart iTunes playlists that can order by album most recently added, but keep the songs in the right order, I would be interested in learning it.

So, as ever in no particular order, my pick of this year’s albums…
Last of the Country Gentlemen / Josh T Pearson My big discovery from 2009′s December ATP finally got around to releasing his first solo record. Live he’s an affable, bad-joke-cracking fool between his haunting, haunted songs. On record, you just get the sound of a soul trying to fix itself any which way it can.

Acrobats / Peggy Sue A little old-school PJ Harvey, a little of what I’d have liked from the last Tegan & Sara. Taut, and not a little bitter.

Let England Shake / PJ Harvey While I love ‘Stories From The City…’, for my money this is her best album since ‘To Bring You My Love’. If autoharps, hunting horns, reggae samples and Eddie Cochran were the building blocks of English folk music.

England Keep My Bones / Frank Turner A couple of missteps on this album for me, not least of which is the uncharacteristically clumsy “atheist anthem” ‘Glory Hallelujah’; Frank dispatches religion far more pithily and effectively in throwaway lines elsewhere on this record. But when its good (the first 5 tracks, ‘One Foot Before The Other’) it’s the most assured he’s sounded since ‘Sleep is for the Week’.

Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 / The Beastie Boys Couldn’t not be on here. 2 years delayed, squelchy, distorted, unutterably Beasties.

Blacked Up / Shabazz Palaces Pretty much the hip-hop album I’ve been waiting for for the last five or six years. The swagger of Kanye, but the playfulness of DAISY Age De La. This year’s most-played by quite a margin, according to my iTunes.

Dynamite Steps / Twilight Singers I pretty much just want Greg Dulli to make records that sound like this for the rest of his life. Which is fortunate, I guess.

Cults / Cults The first record I bought this year. It rides the Sleigh Bells coattails a bit, but sounds like it’s having more fun.

Virtue / Emmy the Great The beautifully-enunciated sound of a love gone inexplicably, cruelly pear-shaped.

Honourable mentions should go to Braids (‘Braids’) and Das Racist (‘Relax’), records I have only picked up in the last few weeks and have not had the opportunity to fully explore.

If you have your own recommendations to share with the class, or any wrongheaded rebuttals of my infallible logic, comments will be open for 2 weeks (first time commenters may need their comments moderating, in which case apologies if I don’t get to it in a timely fashion). Happy New Year!