2024: a year in photos
Each December I pull together my favourite pictures and cultural experiences and reflections month by month, mapping the shape of the year over the top of the last. 2024 was a good year. I didn’t do a lot of the things I set out to do - run a 10K, make a photobook, drive a roadtrip - but I did do a lot of other things, and recorded them as thoroughly as ever.
Every time I write these I find myself wanting to change the way I record and remember my life. Wondering whether to retire social media, write more reflective pieces throughout the year, find better ways to enjoy the results of shooting so much film. Or even - perhaps! - just live in the moment! But then I go back and read the last few annual summaries, moments and memories that might otherwise slip away at the end of each year. I feel glad I have remained a rigorous self-archivist (for now).
My birthday cake, which was also our wedding sample cake, on Cinestill 800T.
january
Less of a launch, more of a continuation. A mad dash towards the end of a 2.5 year process that ended with handing in my dissertation, feeling I’d done myself proud. Exhausted, exhausting start to the year - although a New Year’s Day swim with friends at the Ladies’ Pond did feel like new beginnings. In between: protest, stacks of books in bed, biting walks in winter sunlight, the smell of coffee and steam rising in cold air, reality television on the sofa with friends, golden hour on the walls of our flat.
book Antarctica by Clair Keegan film Anatomy of a Fall TV The Traitors UK (Season 2) podcast The Left Right Game newsletter Little Intimacies by Sophie Mackintosh
H on Brighton pier, shot on iPhone.
february
The true fresh start after our 31st January deadlines. Choppy seas in Brighton to celebrate our hand-ins, friends and food and art and snooker, hands frozen on Lime bike handlebars, a strangely momentous evening with a very old pal before she went back to Australia to start a family. And we got civilly partnered! That was the main thing really. Cocooned in love and luck and grateful to our families and handful of friends, all safe and well and who travelled to us and were able and enthusiastic to support our union. My cousins together for the first time in years, zooming past our hotel lobby to deliver us our flowers at the last minute. All of our favourite Palestinian foods and an extremely silly cake.
book Ducks by Kate Beaton TV True Detective (Season 4) art Philip Guston at Tate Modern performance cowbois at the Royal Court podcast Rabbits newsletter KNOT CONTENT by Kaiya Stone
Vienna with Masha on Kentmere 400 after a very unsuccessful attempt at the night train from Brussels.
march
Shocking how much time there is at one’s disposal after years of part-time study alongside full-time work. The year revved, I burst away from my desk and out of the country to see art, to see friends, to slam my laptop shut by 6:30pm (almost) every evening. We went cycling in Belgium via our loved ones big and small. A night in a faux medieval tower too spooky even for my taste, and our first experience of the honeymoon upgrade. I spent 48 hours of art and theatre and film and food with Masha in Vienna after a terrible night train attempt which nonetheless reminded me of the joys of speaking multiple languages and having a gung ho attitude.
book Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K. Reilly film The Zone of Interest TV Shogun art the mystic lamb at St Bavo’s podcast Who Trolled Amber? by Tortoise newsletter idle thoughts by Shon Faye
Protest and solidarity, shot on iPhone.
april
A middle-aged month. Art and freshly cut flowers, breakfast in bed, dinners out. A weekend cat-sitting in the countryside, a weekend visiting old haunts in Oxford, a weekend in Gloucestershire with wine and classical music and pottery. It’s hard to know how to record the pain and protest across this year, the omnipresent hum and sometimes scream of it. Grief and anger and often despair that I have struggled to know how to act on and to share - and solidarities everywhere too. A gladness to live in London.
book Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh TV 3 Body Problem art Joshua Leon’s The Missing O and E at Chisenhale Gallery performance Gunter at the Royal Court podcast Jewish Currents’ On The Nose newsletter Culture Study by Anne Helen Petersen
Cycling in Sussex, on Silbersalz.
may
A hinge of the year, a month of small joys. My whole family descending onto Amsterdam with the spring, a surprise for a beloved cousin turning a quarter century and an opportunity for cycling with friends and piles of bitterballen. Wonder shared with strangers as the northern lights swooped over Clapton for some probably very ominous reason. We went to Lewes for a castle and queer art and the pub with friends and archery at the renaissance fair and a night in a shepherd’s hut with our bikes visible from the end of the bed and a charcuterie board - one of the best weekends of the year.
book These Silent Mansions by Jean Sprackland film Challengers TV I Kissed A Girl art Adam Rouhana’s photographs of Palestine at Frieze performance Multiple Casualty Incident at The Yard podcast The New Yorker’s In The Dark newsletter sweater weather by Brandon Taylor
The Northbank Hotel on the Isle of Wight, shot on Candido 800.
june
Explosions of colour across my camera roll, golden hour light on the roses in Regent’s Park and Pride taking over. A surreal few days on the Isle of Wight, including a hen party, a perilous seaborne approach to a lighthouse, and a family visit to a hotel of many memories that we realised as we left would be our very last. Hobbies crawling into the vacuum left by my masters. I joined a book club and an intensive Arabic course, both of which will plough onwards into 2025. I presented my masters research professionally for the first time. One must stay busy.
book The Safe Keep by Yael van den Wouden film Ungentle by Huw Lammey TV Wallander art Jack Lowe’s portraits of women of the RNLI at the National Maritime Museum performance The Secret Garden at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre podcast Bit Fruity by mattxcx newsletter The Pickle by Vashti Media
Haniah and the lake in Sweden, shot on Silbersalz.
july
A month of some of my favourite memories - and photos - of the year. Many of the Big Summer Holiday, third in our annual Nordic tradition. Cities and islands and sauna cabins and hunting down Kro(o)ks in small town Sweden, light through forest trees and bun after bun after bun. Small and various things besides: a day in Cambridge with friends, watching the football on an iPad in the pub and the sunset on a bat safari on punts; running a workshop for general public use of ONS data in London Data Week, rewarding in both preparation and delivery. I also had a minor operation which was a bigger deal than I expected it to be. By the close of the year the scar feels more familiar when I look in the mirror every day - jaw-defining, even.
book The Ministry of Time by Kalian Bradley film Crossing TV Love is Blind Sweden art Fotografiska in Stockholm performance Mneumonic at the National Theatre podcast Normal Gossip newsletter pod by pod by Meg Bertera-Berwick
Last of the roll, Phoebe getting married on Silbersalz.
august
Summer activites: camping in churches, hours in the pub playing cards and watching the olympics, kayaking down narrow waterways and afternoon tea by the river, weddings and weddings and weddings, the orange glow of a cigarette after dark in a sprawling country garden, the neon glow of a petrol station through a Travelodge window.
book Doppelganger by Naomi Klein film Kneecap art Emma Stibbon at Towner Eastbourne podcast The Allegations Against Neil Gaiman by Tortoise Media newsletter Journeys Beyond Borders by Caroline Eden
Light leaks on the beach in Brighton, shot on Silbersalz
september
I graduated with a distinction in my masters. And though I don’t write much about my professional life in these round-ups as what is LinkedIn for, it’s been a great year for that too. I do archive my successes, but not always properly acknowledging them - this year there’s much to feel proud of and I do feel proud. There was a flying visit to Charroux, for what felt too difficult at the time to see as a version of goodbye. A summer of certain finalities.
book Butter by Asako Yusuki film The Outrun TV The Perfect Couple art Ukranian Expressionism at the Royal Academy performance Charlie Shackleton’s 1:1 performance As Mine Exactly podcast Machloket by Nick Cassenbaum, Tash Hyman and take stock exchange newsletter Dining Out by Lauren O’Neill
Almost impossible to sift through 7 rolls in Japan for a favourite, but I treasure the memory of taking this one shot as dusk fell in Nara - on Candido.
october
A race to the big break, ploughing through work, through the awful London turn-of-the-season, through a perfect autumnal escape with family and then: we went to Japan for our honeymoon. It was magic. I wrote some snippets here. A bucket list trip I’d been dreaming of for so long, it feels painfully nostalgic already to think about - it did while we were still there.
book Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton TV Alias art Keisuke Garazawa at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Tokyo podcast MUBI podcast (season 16 on haunted houses specifically) newsletter Crispy Noodles by Nina Mingya Powles
Brendan from the Peak in Hong Kong, double exposed on Candido.
november
A flying visit to Hong Kong to see beloved pals on the way home and just… hang out. Drinking beers in Brendan’s studio, looking down at the city from great heights, playing computer games on the projector and eating at multiple locations per evening. Lots of chatting. Some perspective on London from far outside of it, before returning to the UK to a wild rush at work and a quieter time at home. Books and solo visits to the cinema, and pit stops to friends in Leeds and Stratford-on-Avon.
book Orbital by Samantha Harvey film Heretic TV Deadloch art Hong Kong’s M+ collection - or Dennis Sever’s candlelit house tour alone performance Kneecap at The Foundry in Sheffield podcast Old Gods of Appalachia newsletter From the Desk Of by Alicia Kennedy
York in the fog, on iPhone.
december
Illness, flaking on everything, cancelling plans left right and centre. Feeling awful a lot of the time! Mad rush to get to the finish line, although much like 2024 big work deadlines early in the year make a renewal more likely in the spring than in January. Christmas in York with my family, carols in the minster, rain-slicked cobbled streets and fog descending down into the vale and candle-lit Guiness with friends. Betwixtmas in London, with a seaside new year handover on the horizon. Til next year.
book My Friends by Hisham Matar film Conclave TV Lucan art Adam Rouhana’s photographs of Palestine at Frieze performance The panto at Hackney Empire podcast Life and Art by FT Weekend newsletter Critmas by Salome Wagaine