A bit about me

Hi everyone,

Like the other staff I’ve been conscripted by John into attempting to write a blog article for WPF and, being married to him, have even less opportunity than the others to escape! My only experience of blogging is a photo of the month article on my new website and, despite loving the English language, I find words don’t come as easily to me as they used to; but here goes.

I suppose nature brought me to photography, just in a very long, convoluted and round-about way.

I grew up in Essex in a faded, melancholy Victorian seaside tourist town called Clacton-On-Sea. Like many of us who’ve become nature photographers, I developed both an affinity for wild places and a liking for my own company very early on. I spent a lot of time outside, whether it was on the remoter bleak windy beaches, or in the arable fields and brook at the back of my housing estate. As I got older I discovered the wildlife trusts and our local patchwork quilt of hidden nature reserves. My parents fostered my interest and one of my most vivid nature-related memories is of dragging my poor mother out in raincoats and wellies to go pond dipping for water boatmen and newts in torrential rain! Then of course along came exams and careers and nature receded into the background, though I harboured a secret dream of a home in the countryside with a dog by my side, surrounded by nature.

Through all of this time I had barely picked up a camera, other than to take holiday snaps, though I was interested in drawing and art. Finally, some major events led me to re-evaluate my life, and gave me the opportunity to reach out for my dream. I found myself a little Oxfordshire village, rescued a stray dog and started going on those long walks in the countryside again, enjoying observing the little details of nature again as the seasons turned, the buds forming in the hedgerows and the hawthorn berries ripening. I’d inherited an old Fuji finepix compact camera and started to record nature happening around me from the buds to the berries to the leaf-fall. A few people said I had a good “eye” and I became quite proud of my 3 megapixel snaps.

Then along came John and suddenly the world of photography opened up. When I joined my first forum I didn’t even understand what critique was, and spent many long months feeling quite traumatised and bruised as I realised just how bad my images really were!

Thanks to a 1000D and a lot of expert private tuition from a certain Mr Stuart-Clarke, I’ve come a long way. Now I am also going through regular phases of wanting to delete most of the images in my back catalogue that are more than 12 months old. Funnily enough, my photographic interests have largely stayed true to my love of watching the little things in nature - my favourite activity is still going for a good old mooch in the countryside with my dog, only now I usually take my 180mm macro and a 7D along too.

Kiri