Retrospective February 2026

So here we are in March already, it almost feels like I have blacked our and have only just realised that the month is done. This really has been a super busy month with some huge changes to our life at home so I better catch you up. Also probably a few things I have worked out with these changes too.

The new job.

This has been a major part of the big shift that I am currently recalibrating too. I have been there about a month now and it has been all systems go basically from when I started, and I absolutely love it. My second day I got handed a pretty big project and a deadline which we just delivered and everyone is happy which is great.

Coming from 6 years of purely React and Node and then diving into some pretty big code bases built with .Net, Shopify and Vue has been a big change for me but I think I really thrive when I am knee deep in challenges like that.

The main big piece of change that has come with the new role is the 3 days in the CBD so there ends up being about 9 hours a week spent traveling door to door.

That Nikon Video

So that video I shot with the Nikon ZR at the end of January… Still sitting on my hard drives, more or less un-touched. I did do a little playing around for what the colour grade could look like and seeing how the files do with some edits on them.

My big discovery though was my first time working with multi cam in DaVinci resolve. I was recording on the Nikon ZR, Lumix S1 and Osmo Pocket 3 all at once and the multi cam clip in Resolve was able to easily sync everything up not even with a timecode or anything which was mind blowing.

What the watch price?

This caught my eye because I pulled out my Seiko SNKK47 which I bought about 10 years ago now for, from memory $150 AUD. This then popped up when I took a look on Chrono24 and what in the world happened to these after they we’re discontinued!? Am I sitting on a gold mine?

New Videos - maybe, eventually

This is a bit of a rough one as I have not touched these videos at all, they’re just sitting there on the hard drive and I don’t know if I have the motivation to get to these after the Nikon video.

I also absolutely have not made two videos in February so that plan for the year is absolutely not going to happen in for foreseeable future. I just can’t put it anywhere near actionable for my priorities currently.

Verity’s back at University

My wife is now also going through some pretty huge changes having resigned from her tech job and is now back at University studying Midwifery full time! She has also been working really hard making things over on her business Verity Makes which I have been taking lots of photos for.

I hope none of you need SSD’s any time soon

How much fun is it seeing the price of memory just go through the roof, I hope none of you need to buy any new hard drives or fast storage soon. One thing that was wild in testing the Nikon ZR was that my 256GB CF Express cards I have for my S1 (3 hours 45 minutes of footage) would only give me 18 minutes of raw footage.

Thankfully I got a 2TB Samsung T7 Shield about 3 months ago for a really cheap price before all the prices started skyrocketing but going through any store and seeing the prices now is depressing.

The Scroll Stopping Product Photos Guide

I have been using my train rides to map out and start building out my first digital product. This idea came to me after talking with Verity about her Etsy store and seeing what photos do well and move the needle on a listing. And further cemented when we caught up with our friend Fiona who owns Still Magnets and throwing around ideas to make her product images stand out more.

Captured my interest

• Obdidian.MD Headless Sync - I have loved using Obsidian for absolutely years now and am very interested to see if the headless cli sync could work in any of my current workflows. PS. Check out how satisfying my Interactive graph is…

• Brightin Star 35mm f1.7 APO - This one came from left field and I will be very interested to see what the images look like when we see review units hit the hands of people. I think I am still equally looking at the Light Lens Lab 35mm f1.4 AA and the Mandler 35mm f2 but hey why not add another to the mix… When it comes in silver.
  

Best of February 2026 Gallery

That wraps up February 2026

Well following on from my pretty bleak mid month thought (Creating With Intention, Not Exhaustion) It does feel a little like bleakness continues as a retrospective but I think that’s not really the case. If we take a proper look at it I did say in the Retrospective January 2026 that there were going to be some big changes for 2026 and here we are at the end of February talking about how big the changes have been so far.

Lets look at it in the sense that we’re currently working out what the new normal looks like and moving the goal posts of what I want to achieve and accomplish this year.

Bye for now,

Tom