This time last year, I was laying on a hotel bedroom floor, checking every individual link on this website to make sure I hadn’t linked something to something that didn’t exist. And filling in the gaps with the bios I’d not had chance to write. That was in Stockholm, at 4am I’d finished the site and had to get up at 8am to catch a bus to Örebro to attend Live @ Heart festival with Elle Exxe, her manager Umong, and Andy - the greatest drummer in the world - whilst also figuring out how I was going to make the website/brand launch using the bus’ pretty choppy free WiFi and hotspotting my phone.

This year, I’m sat at a desk, still late at night, the night before launching the 1st Birthday Celebrations, writing this and trying to mentally finish off the design of the thumbnail for the video… and the thumbnail for this blog post.

At least my ribs don’t hurt from sleeping on the floor this year.

It’s been a good year for adventures. Some things happened that I never expected, some things I planned on happening got delayed, and so haven’t happened in this first year.

This isn’t as much a flex, but just a list of things that happened;

• Finished the tour of Sweden

• Went back to Australia (for like 7 days) and made a music video

• Images from a Cardboard Citizens project published in The Big issue

• Images from Sarah Darling’s 2018 UK Summer tour published in Country Music Magazine

• Flew back to Sweden for International Women’s Day

• “Artmongering with Refugees II” was screened for willing public audiences.

• Launched “ZERO” after two years of figuring out when to release it

• Sarah Darling’s “Fire” music video was featured on BBC Sunday Morning Live

• Jade Helliwell’s “Drive” music video was nominated for Best UK Video at the British Country Music Association Awards 2019

• Documented Justin Courtney Pierre’s UK Tour Dates

• Didn’t die.

I drove a lot of miles in that time too. None of this stuff was really expected. Even the driving a lot of miles - sorry, polar bears.

A lot of dumb things have happened in those 365 days, a lot of funny things, a lot of irritating things, and a lot of friends were made too.

Acquaintances became friends, clients became close friends, even someone I’d idolised as a teenager became a friend.

I’m not one to get preachy about things unless you’re looking for a motivational speech then I can conjure one out of thin air like I’m Jeff Winger. But this year has been awesome, I’ve made some awesome friends, I’ve been able to make some awesome work because those awesome people have trusted me to.

One thing I want to do this next year is be braver and bolder.

I want to take more calculated risks with projects; push each individual video in directions that I feel like the client would thrive from, and put myself out there with ideas that I’ve held back with now. ‘ZERO’ was the intended first step for that. Adée has been incredibly supportive with this, allowing me the space to toy with loose ideas that I’ve had late at night or on long drives. I want to put myself in situations where I’ve no option to punch upward, like an underdog has to.

I’ve no real idea what the next 365 will contain, there’s a few releases and projects lined up, how life will factor into plans is another thing. But what’s for sure is that I’ll be writing another self-deprecating review post on September 5th 2020.

Below is a gallery of some of my favourite photos from wee baby Underdog’s first year. And a random single B+W disposable shot of the time I was front row for Childish Gambino - shoutout to Zanesh for saving my super-late ass a space in line.