If you are a member of the BIPP then I hope you will consider giving me your vote. If not, and you are a serious photographer, I hope you will consider joining the Institute.

The site is a useful resource for any serious photographer, especially those considering making it a career or making a career change. The case studies will hopefully provide an insight to the various disciplines within photography, to learn what to expect and how others have gone about it as well as the various opportunities which may be available.

The case study is available here Nature Photography Case Study

Decided I need to awaken my Flickr account from its deep sleep (joined two years ago but didnt really do anything with it) and and start posting regularly. I will post images there which may not appear on my Photoblog or in the galleries here so please take a look at my Flickr photostream here.
I have also just joined Twitter and am finding my way around at the moment but I plan to post whenever this site is updated or when there is some news to tell, so if you are on Twitter and want to be updated, make contact or just find out what I’m up to, follow me on Twitter

It took a lot more time than I had anticipated - or indeed planned for. The most difficult part was getting started - not in deciding what I was going to produce the study on or finding all of the material to research or participants to interview in order to produce it, but in deciding how to produce it and in what format it should be done. Once I had made those decisions, the rest was fairly straight-forward - when you are interested in the subject matter and it is something relevant to you and your own practice, it is so much easier and more enjoyable.

The next issue was that in accumulating so much material, some quite strict and ruthless editing was needed - what to leave in was as important as what to take out. Then there is the presentation to take into account. There is nothing like a deadline to focus the mind

I got there eventually and have finally completed it and handed it in - two days before deadline, which is a first for me.

Yesterday, the House Sparrows fledged so there are fluffy little chicks everywhere again. These little guys are keeping fairly close together and shaking their wings telling mum to feed them. One or two brave ones came to where some seed had spilled onto the ground but didn’t seem too sure what to do. They look very cute in the evening sunlight.

Whilst I was topping up some feed I heard a lot of chirping coming from one of our old nesting boxes, Rickety Rick so I think there must be more chicks in there. In the past, it has been home to Blue tits but last year a family of Coal tits commandeered it so who knows what’s in there this year? I must really try and see if I can rig up a remote camera ready for next year so I can watch them.

As I stood by the back door watching them all through my binoculars, I noticed our Blackbird picking up some bread and flying into one of the large shrubs. He had a nest in the front garden but lost all of the chicks, we think, to a local cat. He was busily taking food away though so using the bins I scoured around and eventually spotted the nest - I couldn’t see in but there are obviously chicks in there as I watched several trips back and forth and then heard the little chirps. I’ll keep an eye on that over the next few days.

I feel quite pleased that we have so many nesting birds for what is only a small garden. I will try and get some new pictures tomorrow if I can just stop sneezing for a while - unfortunately, it’s hayfever time again.

The evening was very enjoyable, with professional photographers from all over the north west in attendance. There were more entries this year than ever before and the standard of entries was very high indeed. The BIPP North West region is one of the most active and the committee are to be congratulated on laying on such a fantastic evening and for organising the print competition.

The image which won the award was of dying Snake’s Head Fritillary blooms, entitled ‘Triple Head’ - this image has been previously included in the photoblog - see it here - and leave a comment if you wish.

The nest was tucked away inside some Leylandii conifers between our front gardens and we even had a job to see it so had thought it was fairly safe. We knew it was there as we’d seen the male blackbird flying into the hedge regularly, firstly with nesting material and then over the last few days every ten minutes or so, with a beak full of worms. The chirping probably gave them away. All that remained was one stone-cold egg which hadn’t hatched, with no trace of the chicks. Such a shame.

Our blackbird is not easily deterred mind, he has another female and another nest in the back garden so has been busy concentrating his efforts on that family since losing the first.

This was partly due to my G5 Apple desktop computer developing an intermittent hardware fault so for several weeks I was without it whilst Apple’s engineers tried to find the problem. Having to work from a laptop, with insufficient memory, accessing backup files on external drives, meant working on images was just not practical. So not only have I been too busy to get out and take pictures, I haven’t been able to process or work on those I have. To add to my frustration, Canon had not, until recently, provided updated drivers for the IPF5000 printer so I was unable to even make prints without a reboot into OSX Tiger!

I struggled to find time for research and for preparing a big assignment for my MA, adding further to my frustrations but I got there eventually and feel I am now really making some progress with this project. I will post separately about this.

All in all, not a very productive past couple of months but that will change now - I’ll make sure of it!

“If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.”

Bob Dylan

Some people may not like this way of working, perhaps preferring a much more structured or rigid approach but I prefer this kind of abstract way of working. Our course tutors are always available when we need them but they prefer to support and guide us in finding out for ourselves rather than ‘teach’ us. It would not work in all subjects of course, but in this case - Site and Archive Interventions - it is ideal. There are only a handful of us on this course. We get on well despite coming from different backgrounds and being at different ages and stages in our careers but we have an interest in each others’ projects which makes it even more interesting as we all work with different media - I am the only photographer for example - so it provides a richer environment.

I’m so glad I took this course.