Common Alder Fruit

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Common Alder Catkins

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Common Alder Catkins

Posted via email from SIMON's posterous

Musings....

Sheep on Peak District Hill

Donna Nook is starting to look less likely to happen. It is nearly a week since I went there and I must say I am still disturbed by the thought of working in a crowd on the beach - just doesn't seem right - after all this should be about the seals rather than some mad scramble to get a photograph. I just don't feel it is the right thing to do. However, I have not made a final decision - yet.

I was going to write about the difficulty of capturing a really interesting nude photograph - but I think I need to give this some more thought before I commit my thoughts to the either. What I have been given a lot of thought to is what to do next year - what sort of projects I should take on and how should I approach them?

This has been prompted by starting to reflect on the last twelve months. I was planning something for the 1 year anniversary of this blog but never got around to it. However, I have been musing on the whole year and what I have achieved and what I want to do next year. So what am I going to do? Well I have a plan - which I will no doubt not stick to - but as I write this it is the latest plan. I intend to work on only three projects over the next 12 months. The first is my ARPS portfolio - I hope to have this ready by the late summer for submission in the autumn. I could submit it now but I want get as many photographs as possible of the same style, lighting etc.

The second project is the Landscape Photographer of the year. This has to be submitted in the July. The final project is the Garden photographer of the year. This is in November. All three give me some time to work on them and they also allow me opportunity submit work to other competitions as they come along. Well that is the plan - goodness knows how long it will last. I will no doubt put something together in the next few days about the Nude - I just have to marshal my thoughts - more musings....

One final thing. I have just crossed the 10000 hits mark on my Flickr account.

pause for thought....

I hate waiting...my wife says I have no patience and she is right I don't. The reason why I mention this is because I am waiting on the results of two submissions I have made to two different competitions - the British Wildlife Awards and the Projected Image. I have mentioned both of these before but I don't know why but waiting for the results from both submissions is driving me nuts. I know I have been short listed for wildlife awards - but that doesn't mean anything. Will I be selected or rejected? The same goes for the Projected Image. I just can't concentrate on doing anything other than worrying about these two submissions - its driving me nuts!!!!

On a slightly connected note I was going to attend a one day garden photography course run by the RPS at Kew Gardens in September. However, this has been cancelled - lack of numbers so I decided to get a refund on my train tickets. They don't do refunds so I have slightly changed my travel times and will spend the day going around galleries etc. I'm still working on an itinerary but there looks like a lot of interesting exhibitions so it should be an interesting day out. So what is the connection you might ask? Will I am thinking about entering the garden photographer of the year competition and this was going to help. Another frustration.

What this has meant is that I have had little inspiration to take any photographs so I have spent my time catching up - something I have written about earlier. The photograph above is the result of this catching up.

Hard Work...

The past few weeks have been busy. Two photographic holidays, processing the results then selecting and entering competitions really starts to draw the creative juices out you. Well it does me anyway.

The relentless pace is keeping up. I have finally selected my photographs for the projected image exhibition submission. These need to be sent off and then the next submission - Portfolio 2 and then the Garden photography competition and then a breather. My hopes are always high but I am also realistic - these competitions are always a lottery and you have no idea whether what you have submitted is what the judges are looking for. Still this is much better than working for a living....

National Trust and Gardens...

I'm working towards entering the International Garden Photography competition. Nothing unusual there. So one of the first question you have to ask yourself is where should I go to photograph a garden (it is more complicated than that).. One of the obvious suggestion that has been made to me is 'well there's always the National Trust...' Are yes the good old National trust. The reliable old relative that you always know about but don't really start to appreciate until you are getting on a bit yourself.

However, it turns out that the old codger has a dark side. It has always been interested in raising money - I, like every other member, get enough fund raising bumph from them every year - goodness only know what the carbon footprint of all this lot is but that is another story. Now they are taking serious action to control their image rights. If you want to enter any photograph taken on a National Trust premises then you must get permission from the Trust before you enter it into the competition. (Click Here to see the full restrictions)

I just love the way that the lawyers who wrote these restrictions have the bare faced check to start the restrictions by saying the Trust '...is pleased to be able to offer photographers the opportunity to take photographs at its properties ...' However, to take up this opportunity you must get written permission from the Trust before you actually take any photographs. They very handily provide the form to fill out so that you can get it signed before you enter any property. Interestingly they don'y ask for such a form to be completed by entrants to their own photo competition (Click here for the rules)

We will set aside the way the restrictions totally contradict the opening sentence of their rules and consider the photograph I took of the Red Squirrel I took at Formby National Trust site last year. The question is this. Does the National Trust claim the image rights of the Squirrel? This is a wild animal that lives on a National Trust Site. Do I need to get a release form signed before I use this photograph - if so from whom? I suppose the Trust could argue that the pine tree in the photograph is their property and so they do have some rights over that - but a wild animal who lives in their woods?

Are we getting things slightly out of proportion here? Probably. But that is the crazy form filling world in which we live. A hoo. By the way the photograph below was not taken on a National Trust property but rather a public footpath in Narborough.