> Last updated June 15th, 2024
I have been lacking the discipline to update this page regularly, so I apologise if you have been trying to find updates here and have felt disappointed these past months.
I am now setting the wheels in motion and taking action to achieve the new goals I set for myself and the business.
You may have also noticed a lack of updates on social media. Only a handful of Instagram posts and no new YouTube videos have been published in recent months.
I will not bother you with all the reasons why I haven't published updates; just know that the plan is to rectify that and be more present.
But this blog? Goodness me, it just went totally viral and crashed the server—the sort of thing you only read in the news. All because of my post about the right to object at AI at Meta. Apparently, many were not happy with Meta's move, so people flocked to Cara, which is yet another Instagram alternative. Adobe is also in a bad spot for AI-related reasons.
However, AI can also bring great news, as demonstrated by the very interesting announcements at Apple's WWDC.
The fun thing is that all of that happened while I was away (in Dublin), so I kind of missed everything, LOL.
YouTube
Visit my channel at youtube.com/@fabienb, and don't forget to subscribe!
The last video I published was the second episode of my Photographing The World series from Istanbul. The video series comes with its companion photobook, which is a first for me. There are plenty of hi-res images, stories and locations from all the spots in the videos.
The good thing is that this content never gets old. So, even though it took me a year to publish another episode, it is still relevant and, of course, very enjoyable.
Tuition
I'm happy to announce that my workshops are back in full swing in 2024. I am making myself available to bring my workshops wherever you live. Be sure to monitor my Instagram Stories for news, and hopefully, I'll see you soon.
New workshops will be announced soon. The International photo tours may happen again in the second half of the year, and there may be a few surprises (including a huge collaboration with a favourite brand).
So, 1-1 workshops are back! And, of course, all other options are always available…
I will keep helping other photographers with my 1-1 online sessions, but these will become less frequent. The option is still available of course, and it can help with many aspects that are not strictly related to Photography: improving editing, learning about creating a website, strategising your brand, etc. I'm glad I can help with all of that, thanks to my 30 years of experience as Creative Director in Branding, UX and Design.
For those in London, you can also book my “mini” workshops if you feel you have little time to dedicate to Photography: you can book a session during your lunch break or right after work!
Exhibitions
Even though I'm not travelling much, I'm stoked that my photos are! They appeared in a few exhibitions around the world in these past years, and new ones have already been confirmed for the next; I was featured in India for the first time, and I am once again selected to appear at the Photographer Of The Year exhibition in London (third year in a row) and a few other prestigious appearances… I also just received the news that I will be featured at the Street Photographer of the Year exhibition in Cleveland, USA, in June.
Publishing
Besides the Istanbul photobook I mentioned above, I'm still working on a series of photo magazines to document my lengthy trip around Georgia (the country), where I will return in 2024, and a companion zine to pair with my new presets.
It's been a very slow project, but with what I learned from the Istanbul book, I can maybe speed this up now.
Store
I have a few changes planned for the store so things may be a bit glitchy at times, apologies for that.
The Limited 10 series is finally back and I'm looking at options to publish a collection or two as NFT.
In the meantime, I have released a useful presets pack for Lightroom and ACR to help with sharpening Fujifilm photos (a must for print) and a Black and White presets pack. Check them out.
Also, following the new feature at the Street Photographer of the Year exhibition, I have created a new series of prints called Collection. All award-winning and prestigious photos, in limited editions, that you will be proud to hang on your walls!
Back to AI… If you are looking for legal images to use to train an AI model, I have published a couple of royalty-free packs for you (and your team). The packs are also extremely useful for editorial, content creation, etc, of course.
Web
I keep working hard to reach a good optimisation of fabienb.blog for ideal performance, to give you the best user experience while navigating my content. I went from ranking E (54%) on Pagespeed for a 13s page load to A (97%) for 0.96s page load, and still working on improving. But I have added tons of features so it went a bit slower, hence why I made the big change with this new layout. I'm sure more improvements will come soon.
One issue is that the more things I add, even more images, products or widgets, the bigger the database becomes. Which tends to slow things down. I monitor it regularly and try to take all the actions to improve speed, but sometimes I'll have to accept it just isn't always ideal.
I moved to a new host, Hostinger, that is specifically optimised for WordPress. So things should improve on the server front as well.
Personal
[Reading] I just added a bunch of books to my Kobo and Kindle. I'll let you know if they're good.
[Watching] Netflix has added quite a few anime lately, so I'm spending some time on that service. Blue Eye Samurai is very good, no real cliffhanger but very enjoyable and well crafted with a mix of 2D and 3D.
Obviously, the big talking point has to be Ripley: marvellous. I don't understand the hate on social media for black and white rendition, it's just gorgeous (and faithful to the period). By the way, among my royalty-free packs, I have one with photos from the Amalfi Coast… Just saying.
[Playing] Diablo 4, whenever I have any some spare time, as season 4 finally makes the game interesting. I pretty much abandoned Diablo Immortal as it lost appeal.