About

John Duckett is a UK based 'Fine Art' Landscape and Seascape Photographer. Over the years John’s work has appeared in magazines, calendars, books and greetings cards. He's produced work for clients as diverse as the National Trust and Shell UK. His fine-art photographs have made it as far as Canada, the USA, as well as Australia and New Zealand. He has published 3 books of Norfolk photographs and has been a semi-professional/professional landscape photographer since 2004.

Back in the day and pre going semi professional (30+ years ago) I was a fresh faced landscape photographer. I did not care what people thought of my work I just did what I liked, dark and moody photographs.

Then I started to share my work on photography sites and, I'm ashamed to admit it, I started to chase likes and I started to change my style to what seemed to be popular (normally strong contrast and vivid colours)!.

Then it got worse I discovered social media, strong contrast and vivid colours were then joined by bright images as I chased followers and fame. I was now selling my photographs and success followed with the publishing of 3 books, print sales, running workshops and commercial commissions etc. I was successful but I started to realise I wasn't as happy with my images as when I was starting out. Somewhere along the way I had lost my photographic style.

What a too do! I had lost my way, my identity. I tried various things to try and get my mojo back, black & white only, square format only, undersaturated soft contrast photographs. They all worked to some extend, and many are still for sale on this and other websites and image libraries, but to be honest I was still struggling with my self-esteem.

Moving forward to today and I have finally come full circle (albeit with a twist) and I am back to my old beloved dark and moody. What's the twist? The twist is Its been a long journey and looking back the period of strong contrast and vivid colour made me realise how much this wasn't me. In fact I questioned the use of colour full stop. What I have learnt through my journey is how much I like black & white (in fact going back to my film days a nice Ilford 400 was always my film of choice). So the twist is simple, the twist is my old dark and moody style is now finally back but in black and white only.

Popularity and sales may well (and probably will) plummet and I need to earn money, I'm now 60 years old and have taken early retirement from my day job in the NHS which means I can now concentrate full time on my photography. So here's what I'm doing. My albums on the website will be dedicated to my black and white work and I will still produce coloured images but these I will target at the commercial licence side of the site. If you want to see my coloured work then please do use the 'all images' option on the drop down menu top right.

Finally and photography has always been my happy place but it's only in the last year or two that I have finally realised how important it is to me. After a turbulent few years in my day job during which I underwent various treatments for anxiety and depression, final (at the age of 58) it was discovered that I'm neurodivergent. I am autistic and its more then likely I have ADHD (awaiting a diagnosis). Thanks to early retirement and diving full time into my photography though I am in a good place mentally!

Thank you,