Svalbard is a place I will never forget, for it is
beautifully wild and rugged, a quiet and contemplative
place, cold yet strangely welcoming. It so
reminded me of my beloved Scottish Mountains with snow
clad summits protected by sharp challenging ridges.
Almost the whole island is mountainous, surrounded by
bare rocky slopes, sometimes moorland or bog, but
all of which really made me feel at home.
I was staying aboard an absolutely stunning ship called
the Noorderlicht. Life on deck was bitterly cold
but worth it for the view and possibility of a wildlife
sighting, but below deck the wooden beams and
comfortable furniture nestled in a small but cosy warm
environment was where I got to know the other 17 guests
on the trip in a relaxed and friendly manner. This
was one of the best aspects of the trip, not to mention
the fantastic gourmet food we were served.
I had been invited aboard to help guests with their
photography. Most guests had not booked with
photography in mind, as my inclusion was a late
advertising attempt by Aqua-Firma to simply fill the
last remaining spaces that threatened to go unfilled.
It worked, and to my surprise of the 18 guests, 6 were
really keen photographers, including a talented Italian
photographer,
Federico Sambolino who has now uploaded his images
to his website and well worth a look.
In terms of photography the trip started well with a
visit to a Hornsund bird cliff (no birds though!) and
onwards to the Paierlbreen glacier with
kittiwakes dancing in front of a blue-green-cyan ice wall.
Some of us enjoyed experimenting with slow shutter speeds
here, hoping to get a more arty look (see my
Arctic
Birds gallery). We then saw our first Polar
Bear. This turned out to be frustrating as the
tour leader (Robin Buzza) and crew wouldn't approach the
bear closer than 100 metres. Too far away for the
cameras! This was because they didn't want us to
interfere in any way upon the bear's natural behaviour!
We would only get closer if the bear came to us we were
told.
The photographers were disappointed. We were
surely going to get a better chance for a photo in the
coming days? Well, as it turned out we
didn't do too well. Most bears seemed to have
moved northwards with the sea ice, which lay just to the
north of Svalbard by now. We saw only 4 other
bears in 2 weeks, all of them in the same place feeding
on a submerged dead whale just off shore. Again,
the guide and crew held back so we could only watch, or
photograph the bears as specks in the frame (I was ok as
I had a 600mm lens plus teleconvertors, but most
photographers had much less zoom power, especially those
with
instamatics!). Requests to board a zodiac were
declined, which seemed strange as I have often seen
photos taken from zodiacs with bears as close as ten
metres away.
So to compensate for this, our efforts were directed at
the landscape. Here is where Svalbard is a
winner! We saw some spectacular light during
our voyage, be it the dark stormy clouds over the
mountains or the sweet golden light as the sun set each
evening, with the midnight sun often giving some very
weird light indeed! Combined with the often
abstract landforms this made for a really pleasing
photography trip.
Each day we would land and be taken by Robin
to a historical site where he would recount in
detail the dates regarding Svalbard's whaling past or
its base for exploration to the North Pole and the
search for north-east trading passage. We saw
lierally thousands of whale bones still stacked were the
whalers of the Edwardian and Victorian Era discarded
them, preserved in the oft frozen air as though they
were unceremoniously dumped yesterday. These gave
some of the more abstract and urban photographers a
chance to excel!
Being on land also gave those not too enthralled with
whaling history, a chance to look about and take some
good photos of plants and other macro subjects at their
feet (the only time we could do this for stopping wasn't
allowed on walks!).
Beluga Whale Bones and Whalers Hut
But after 14 days of whaling sites, dates, quotes from
old journals, and witness to the sheer amount of rubbish
and filth left behind by exploitative explorers (who all
had payrollers with commercial gain paramount) I did
feel uneasy. After all, I was there with the
impression I would be seeing and helping others to
photograph wildlife, as it said in the advert! But
the wildlife was incidental to this tour as it turned
out. Worse, the boat crew shared
no passion for wildlife.
I had no sway with the guide or crew about bettering the
photgraphic experience for the guests. I was sad
for those who had become frustrated with the lack of
wildlife, and especially the rule about Polar Bears on the trip. Showings of David
Attenborough some evenings just doesn't compensate
(films being about the only passion for wildlife our
guide seemed to have).
So it is that I have now parted company with Aqua-Firma.
It's a valuable lesson learnt. I hope I've
revealed some insight for you if you are considering a
photography trip not just to Svalbard but anywhere - Pay
the extra to go with a company who understands your
photographic needs and will do all they can to get you
in position for lighting and wildlife presence, and give
you the patience that photography requires. Don't
make the mistake of falling for what it says in a
brochure either - for this is the age of spin and
exaggeration. Ask other photographers for
recommendations based upon personal experience.
Svalbard is a stunning
place that could be made all the better for guests
searching for wildlife and photographs with a well thought out
itinerary. If I had any money I would love to charter a boat for
photographers for what would be a truly memorable trip.
Watch this space.
I've teamed up with Aqua Firma to invite you on board
an amazing Arctic Sailing ship to join me on a wildlife
photography holiday to Svalbard and the Arctic.
We intend to circumnavigate the islands of Spitzbergen
and Svalbard
using an icebreaking schooner. This is the small
window of opportunity when the sea is ice free around
the islands. We will visit remote areas rarely
explored by other photography tours.
This elegant ship carries 20 passengers in warm,
comfortable surroundings with great food and
hospitality. As well as me being there to help
with your photography, there is a guide onboard who is
one of the best in the Arctic and whether sailing or
hiking on land, their passion and knowledge of this
region will be infectious.
We will leave the UK on the 11th August and return on
the 27th August. The cost of the trip is £2,990
plus airfare to Longyearbyen
We will get opportunities both onshore and aboard to
photograph Polar Bear, Walrus, Arctic Fox, Svalbard
Reindeer, Orca, Arctic and Pomarine Skuas, Ivory Gull,
Glaucous Gull, Brunnich's Guillemot, Whales, seals,
arctic flora and much more. Most of the animals
will be unafraid of humans allowing us very close
approaches as we venture onto the Tundra or out on a
Zodiac - a large inflatable raft. We will
also be visiting towns and other sites of historical
interest.
You will not need "professional" cameras or big zoom
lenses to photograph the wildlife here. Wide angle
and medium range (300mm) telephoto lenses will be very
useful, as will a tripod, beanbag, polarising and
graduated neutral density filters. I will be on
hand to help and encourage you get the best from this
trip and hopefully avoid the usual pitfalls on a trip of
this sort. We will look at and learn from each
others photos every evening and discuss what we expect
the following day. Laptops with imaging software
such as Photoshop would be very useful to bring along.
The temperatures you will encounter will not be as cold
as you may imagine. This is the summer when the
ice is melting with average temperatures of 4-6
Centigrade - a common enough temperature in the UK
between November and March. And in case you don't
realise, there will be round the clock daylight! I
think we will get tired! For more info on Svalbard
click here.
Aqua Firma is a very well respected adventure and
wildlife operator. The trips are created using the
help of professional scientists, conservationists,
photographers and explorers. For more information please
take a look at their website, which includes telephone
numbers and booking forms for this trip.
I've now been back in the UK for just over a month but
I've hardly been in the house. Partly because my
time is rapidly looming to becoming a full-time daddy -
my partner is soon to return to work and my job doesn't
earn enough to employ a nanny etc (and even if it did I
wouldn't want Indigo to be parted from me) - but because
the weather and breeding successes of our birds this
year are brilliant.
The redstart project was good, with several of my
workshop attendants getting shots of this beautiful
bird. As these youngsters began to fledge I
switched my attention to Goshawk, an unbelievably
fantastic bird. I have long been watching these
forest phantoms without much success of a photograph.
I really need to be near a nest but thanks to the
ridiculous and petty licensing rules we have in the UK I
have found it too tough to go and find one "by chance"
(photographers need a piece of signed paper to go near a
nest, wheareas anyone else can have a rave and drug
party under the nesting tree without so much of a
warning letter - yes, it happens here in the Forest of
Dean!). Because of the alledged disturbance to the
nesting birds these rules are pretentiously enforced in
this country, so instead many photographers go abroad to
disturb them, because no such rules apply there.
Anyone thinking of sending me an explanation needs to
answer why
disturbance is allowed everywhere except in the
jurisdiction of a stealth taxing UKplc (in fact, any
legislative "ACT", or Advanced Corporate Tax, is a
voluntary "rules and penalty" game)! Are these rules for
the good of the bird or just the revenue and elitist
tendencies of UK
authoritarianism?
Anyway, when you have lived and breathed in the
Goshawk's realm for as long as I have it is just a
matter of time that I got my chance. I didn't need
to be "near" a nest (what is near or far?), just
patience and knowhow and the right contacts and things
start to happen. Many hours in a hide and a bounty
of roadkill squirrels later I have something like 14
"good" goshawk images in the bag. YET, not one good one
of the adults! I am in such awe of the psychic
ability of these birds to know where I was hiding, when I even just thought about them, that
they kept "just" out of reach behind a branch or simply
knowing when or where not to land. This is
a long project and I really need to focus on next year
now to get the adult.
On a different but still successful note I want to
announce my BIG workshop I will be running early next
year. It will be in the Antarctic with a British
company called
Aqua
Firma. I will put more details here as I get
them - dates, prices etc. I am so excited to be
going to one of the world's truly wild places. I
wouldn't otherwise be able to afford to go on my own so
this is a great opportunity for me. I hope you can
join me.
Now maybe I am counting some eggs here as well, but I
have once again reached the very final stages of the BWPA
(British Wildlife Photography Awards) contest, and can't
wait to see if I have been selected as a winner.
Again details will be posted here asap.
Things do seem to be better in good weather don't they?
It's been 3 months since I posted anything here or in
the galleries, the longest stretch of nothing since I
started this website. The joys and added duties of
being a parent is mostly the reason, not to mention
processing all my images from my time in Spain and
adding a few of these to the website. Please check
out the newly fledged European Wildlife galleries I've
created and hopefully will be added to over the
next few years to create a fully mature collection of
European wildlife.
Since I returned back to the UK at the
beginning of May the birds have been in full swing too
starting their own families. Always a brilliant
time to go out in the Forest, listening to the song in
the tree tops, excitedly awaiting the sight of a bird
visiting its nest. Now I have never been any good
at finding nests, so when I do find one I feel
particuarly priveledged to witness a private and
probably anxious time for these parents bringing up
their little and vulnerable offspring, dashing around
for their food seemingly without any time for
themselves. Among the families I have been
watching are pied flycatcher, redstart and peregrine,
three of the more famous residents of the Forest of
Dean. One particularly difficult parent (but
usually inquisitive) was a whitethroat who managed to
elude me for many hours of chasing around some scrub
here in the Forest. I gave up with just 2 images
as a record (see warbler gallery). I will be back
for him later perhaps?
I have just uploaded some images of another bird I
discovered on a nest during a drive through mid Wales in
late May. The whinchat is a small and sprightly
little bird I have wanted to photograph ever since I
photographed them badly in Oban
a few years ago. No nest photos (I think the worry
for the parents would be too much had I approached the
nest deep in some moorland grass), but by keeping a
distance and observing their dedication was
really enjoying. I only visited them twice for a
couple of hours each time before I left them to it.
Below is the male keeping his eye on me. Check out
the other images in the
Wheatear & Chat
gallery.
Also close by was a Wheatear nest. This was during
a workshop I was running so didn't have much time to get
my own photos but I did get some great shots of the male
on a post (check it out in the same gallery above).
Well actually, my client got the photo for me as I was
on the wrong side of the car!! Thanks Alison!!
I have now been to this part of Wales a few times this
year, each time on a Workshop Day out to include the red
kites at Gigrin farm. Workshop bookings have been
up for me this year with most of May and June fully
booked. I have had a great time meeting and
chatting with so many great folk and hope that those I
gave projects too will contact me when successful so I
can visit them. I have been really pleased with
the images we have been getting. I used to
get nervous with these workshops but I now realise that
anyone who wants to learn about wildlife photography are
almost always charming and good company and thankfully
understanding if a particular location doesn't get the
desired result or weather forecast! Its's a useful
lesson, when target species don't show or we miss that
all important shot. All part of the joys and
frustrations of wildlife photography. I do still
have spaces left in July and August for workshops if anyone is interested. Send me an email if
you want to photograph red kites, wheatears, swallows
etc on one of my Welsh workshops. Please go to my
Workshops page to find out
more.
Anyway, must go now to catch up with my redstart family.
I have a friend who has asked to film them so I want to
make sure they are still there and haven't fledged yet
(they will fledge very very soon). Afterwards, I
need to tend to my youngster and give the mother a much
needed rest! Parents!
At the moment I am having a long "working" holiday in
the South of Spain staying with my 4 months old baby Indigo, her
mum and her grandparents. Indigo is just
incredibly adorable and can't wait to show her the
beauty of the world around her.
The weather is quite
cold and at times very wet and far fom being a desert,
as predicted by the global warming evangelists, the
place is overflowing with water and full reservoirs!
In between the rain, one of my favourite places to visit is Gibraltar where
there is quite a concentration of wildlife, especially
the "apes".
Although Indigo hasn't yet met these sometimes cuddly,
sometimes aggressive inhabitants of the "Rock", she will
do soon and I will surely get the pictures up on the
website (more ape images here).
Barbary Macaque 19
The wildlife at the moment is justifiably quiet and I've done a few
walks to look for promising sites for orchids and birds
in the near future. I recently ventured into the
mountains as there is quite a lot of snow about hoping
some of the rarer birds have moved to lower altitudes.
One such mountain above Marbella stands at just over
1,200m high, and I was very lucky (inspired?) to search
for and then find a pair of Alpine Accentor, an elusive
bird I've wanted to find for a few years now.
Alpine Accentor 05
snow 2
I have also got some nice
black redstart
photos, a task that took quite a few days of baiting and
setting up. I was lucky because the day after my
best effort was the day the bird left! We wildlife
photographers do need a lot of luck sometimes! I am optimistic that the wildlife will pick up soon and
end my recent drought of photos to post on my website.
After all, I'll soon be making my first visit to the
Coto Donana, a treat I've been saving for myself for
many years.
I was recently asked by the Wildlife Trusts to send them
some photos of the Severn Estuary and its wildlife. Reasonably they thought I may have some
on file as it is a local patch of mine. But until now I've never really been a
fan of landscape photography. But these days I
have the bug and took 2 days to challenge myself in the
recent storms and floods to get some nice photos for the
Trust. I had to concentrate on a very small bit of
estuary close to home given the deadline. It looked bleak and impossible in the
weather outside, but I think I got a nice
"snapshot" of the pre-barrage estuary. I
think they also show how life goes on regardless of
weather or man, and that bad weather can even bring
surprises. It is great what can be achieved with the right
motivation.
A Pomarine Skua rests on migration during the storms of
late November 2009. (more here).
A lonely Oystercatcher picks a meal from the muds.
27:09:09 - British
Wildlife Photography Awards 2009
RUNNER UP - British
Wildlife Photography Awards 2009
I was delighted to be awarded the overall
runner-up at the premiere of the British Wildlife Photography
Awards (BWPA) - a celebration of British Wildlife and photographers.
The above image of a male and female blackbird fighting
to the death in the heavy snowfall in February this year
(2009) claimed not only the winner of the Animal Behaviour
section, but went on to be the overall runner-up.
I had promised to keep the news quiet since late July about
the win, but was genuinely surprised on the night to get
the second prize.
I took the image at a slow shutter speed
looking into a low sun filtered through the trees. The image
is almost full frame in width but cropped off the bottom
to make square. As the birds jumped I had to pan upwards
with them. It was taken in the recent snowfall in
February very early in the morning.
The whole night of the awards was excellent,
held at Hoopers gallery in London. Lots of well known
UK photographers were there either to watch or receive awards.
There was 80 photos on display and will
now form a tour around the UK. I have another 2 photos
in the exhibition (commended images):
I do feel proud to have got 3 photos
in the exhibition, especially considering I only entered
9 images. I am particularly pleased with the competition
rules for not allowing any form of image manipulation!
Well done to the others who are in the exhibition as the
quality of photos and the number of well known professionals
who entered made it tough. Also thanks to Maggie Gowan,
the organiser, who told me the entire thing was done for
no profit (next year she hopes this will change!).
Having been a past runner-up in the Wildlife Photographer
of the Year Awards, and having been to that award ceremony,
I can say that the quality of images and potential to make
new friends on the night was definately comparable.
I'm sure this competition will have a good audience and
following in the coming years.
You will soon be able to buy these prints
framed by going to the
Showcase Gallery
page. Just give me a day or two to get that ready!
If you are appalled like I am at the
Codex Alimentarius proposals as outlined in a previous blog
(here), particularly the potential
changes to Vitamin Supplements, please sign a
People are getting ill in greater numbers
than ever before despite modern medicine. Disconnection
from nature and all things natural is the cause.
This has been the ONLY way you; the
demos, the people, is given the slightest voice on this
process since 1963. You really need to contact your
MEP or Member of the European Parliament (if you know who
this is!). You can also support the
Alliance for Natural Health,
and the
Natural Health Federation,
who are fighting this in the shadows for you. This
Codex will be passed at the end of this year. You
are invited to attend the Codex meeting (try and find out
how), but you are not allowed to speak.
"Politicians don't
see the Light, they feel the heat. Be vocal and persistent.
Write letters and join together to protest"
Scott Tips, 2009 Natural Health
Federation. Personal communication.
People laugh when I mention Codex Alimentarius
down the pub, they think it's a joke (it's their conditioning).
Please Google it if you've sniggered (lazy
man's link here).
"Our challenge is to demonstrate that
no corporate strategy can be effective against the universal
desire to retain the
basic human right to food and health
FREEDOM".
Ian Crane 2008
So far, August has been a very low energy
month. Have you felt it? I need to look
up if any Astrologers can explain it. There
seems no reason for it at all. Life is wonderful.
I was notified of yet another success with my photography
yesterday - the fighting squirrel photo has been awarded
by the American media corporation MSNBC as one of the
Best 40 Photos of 2008.
Incredible!
I think my low energy level is due to
my mind, body and spirit sinking slightly back towards the
mundane reality of the Matrix - the false sense that money,
position and ego are what is needed to survive in this world.
I know it's wrong but when the Matrix starts to win.....
I gotta tell you though, I've gained
nothing in terms of financial gain from these awards.
As I've said, the image was selected by anonymous forces
(Zuma Press), and has since been used to promote these forces
in THEIR business, not mine. But on the surface of
Matrix land, it seems great. Go back to sleep Dave,
you are but a battery slave helping keep their inorganic
heart beating!
But I can't help dwelling on the fact
that earning even a small living from wildlife photography
has got very desperate. I can't take a chance with travel
to take photos any more in order to keep expenses low.
In fact I have now gone a whole year of working at home,
with the exception of just 2 journeys outside of the Forest
of Dean. The climate doom-mongers will be proud of
me as my expenses for travel are almost nil, and so therefore,
is my carbon footprint. Something to be proud of:
Yippee!
As the propaganda of a recession started
to get press coverage, prices for images fell to an all
time low, with newspapers in particular (the new rulers)
driving down the prices, encouraging an all out battle between
agencies competing for their business. The newspapers
are basically telling the agents what they will pay, and
not the other way around! At the same time, a new internet
market is developing called Microstock (see
link) which is making matters even worse and making
photography look cheap and ridiculous, a commodity like
a grain of rice. Earning even a poor man's living
from stock photography is dying. The flood gates have
opened and sad wannabees, like deluded X-Factor failures,
cram the virtual shelves of "photos for sale", hiding the
good stuff in a pile of crap nobody wants to sift through.
Many of these photos are being sold at under £1. And
now the traditional agencies believe they have to compete
with this trash, and have started matching these prices!
Unbelievable and unnecessary.
But the place I love to be is out there
in the unconditional outdoors that is the natural world.
It is still there. I shouldn't be so glum. I
can adapt and Wow, as David Bellamy would shout,
life is still great - if only we could all "see" it, including
the politicians, the yobs in the street, the willful polluters,
animal killers, hate groups.... If we let it, it is
the invented fears this machine drowns us in that destroys
our free will and our dreams. So don't let it.
The best things
in life....aren't things.
Art Buchwald (b. 1925)
We need to leave Plato's cave now.
The free man can only live for himself
and is powerless to change the world of the prisoners on
his own. Would they lock him up again if they could?
Put him in a mental home? Will social services lock
his children up under a Kidscape "correction facility" to
aid the control of him again (and his children who may be
like their dad - free and properly educated). Is he
becoming a danger to their illusion, as well as to the manipulators
agenda? (Is
this the proof?)
We can easily
forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy
of life is when men are afraid of the light.
Plato (c300BC)
Are photography awards just a prize
offered out for blind men, so that the organizers can keep
their control, influence and power? They too play
a game amongst their own peers (who may also be blind to
a lesser extent). Sometimes what seems like a great
thing isn't. Are there fruits to this experience?
Yes! Do I have to get back in the cave to make good?
Maybe? Can I do it? I can do anything....
"My" Squirrels have been awarded FIRST
place in the Natural Environment (still photos) category
of this prestigious international competition run by the
NPPA (National Press Photographers Association).
Now in its eighth year, the BEST of PHOTOJOURNALISM
(BOP) is the world's largest photojournalism contest.
Founded in 1946, the NPPA claims to attract the best in
news photography, news video and multimedia. This
year there was 53,000 entries submitted by 3,700 press photographers
from 147 countries.
The photo has gained quite some acclaim
in 2009, appearing in many newspapers and magazines across
the world, so this is the icing on the cake. I am
obviously delighted and humbled that the judges liked my
photo so much (click the image to see the other winners).
...the strange thing is, I never entered
the photo. It was picked out from the anonymous ether
by anonymous forces! I definitely believe in the power
of coincidence! Do you feel it yet?
It seemed no coincidence that I ended
up seated next to David Bellamy for a whole weekend at the
recent International Alternative View Conference in London
- dining, drinking, and enjoying each others company.
No-one knows who I am, everyone knows David. I am
a silent voice doing my bit, he is a public one doing his.
I didn't even know his views or his battles before I met
him. But we had so much in common regarding our views
on global warming, the personal insights into how politics
and conservation really works, and the personal persecutions
we have suffered due to our "knowledge" and persistence
to speak out against the orthodoxy. No-one else at
the conference seemed to have much clue about ecology,
the long debates about wind turbines, rainforest clearance
and so on, but especially the wonderful natural world
we all live in, but very few "see". I am hoping that
you do also, as you have an interest in visiting my website
of images of this world. I thank you for this interest
from the bottom of my heart.
David and I are both passionate it seems
about seeing the good side of humanity, and furiously rebel
at how the media never show us these things that are happening
in "our" collective reality and physical world. The
spreading of negative energy to lock us into a subservient
prison of the mind, a prison-planet, was what frustrated
us both the most. We can deal with debate, facts and
figures, and even crackpots and politicians (we have both
had our fill of them!) who are deluded. But when you
know something is right and good, but the media and its
corporate sponsors twist and turn at every chance to keep
peoples minds, those you love, locked inside their pessimistic
prisons, the media tiptoeing unwaveringly and without remorse
through the pages of justice and honour to stay clear of
them, selling us their sick thoughts and even the pills
to take, we both hate it.
There is much to
be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the
opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the
ignorance of the community.
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)
David Bellamy was once a well regarded
celebrity bringing us all the joys of discovering nature.
He has no less than 35 scientific "letters" after his name,
has travelled the world many times around, setting up conservation
projects that no-one else has dared to do. He truly
believes in the natural world being at the heart of humanity,
if only we could all acknowledge it as both beautiful and
all essential to our physical and mental survival.
But when he questioned the new politically
motivated movement that the planet is warming at an alarming
rate due exclusively to mankind burning fossil fuels, he
lost his jobs with the media (who once loved him) and they
turned against him using pseudo-intellectuals such as George
Monbiot. Some conservation charities that he Presided
over for years (eg Wildlife Trusts) disowned him in an instant.
There was an immediate attempt to smear and ridicule him.
Could you cope with this? How brave is this man?
Or is it stupid to you...must keep the money coming in even
if it means lying and deceiving your beloved family, friends
and the whole of mankind?
What is it, in our society and individual
minds, that makes us SO need to belong to the "consensus
reality", that we all KNOW is a result of the media, political
spin and dishonourable individuals who infiltrate well meaning
organisations such as the WWF, RSPB, Greenpeace and Friends
of the Earth, YET we so happily turn on those who reject
that fake consensus? Is it some psychological need
to bond via hating a common enemy? This is a proven
fact and often employed by certain military and geopolitical
organisations (The Committee of 300 and Tavistock Institute
being the premier examples). But surely we can rise
above this brainwash; or is that only a few of us are immune
to the hypnosis that most of our friends, relatives and
colleagues can't see?
So here's to you David Bellamy, a not
so lone voice of reason, in a world of madness and fakery.
Prof. David Bellamy and Dr.
David J Slater at the Alternative View Conference, May 2009.
There were so many more heroes
I personally met at the conference and I would love to mention
them also, such as David Halpin (see
link), literally
fighting in his 60's against the brutality of Israeli and
Anglo-American policy against the Palestinians. And Dr.
Len Horowitz (link),
investigating how and why we have all been poisoned and
damaged by Vaccinations over the last few decades.
But his main message is an uplifting one. Maybe next
time...
Life is the only miracle I have ever
subscribed to, and whether it's the work of an omniscient
god, or a freak of evolution, it still feels very miraculous.
Just how did life change by simple evolutionary biochemical
steps from a primordial single celled bacterium to a sentient
complex being called a human? Just doesn't seem enough
time nor the probability that it could have occurred (and
I speak as a Doctor of Geology here). Many scientists
try to explain evolution, speciation, adaptation and so
on, but I don't think they tap into their own instinct to
realise that it just simply cannot have occurred the way
they have been taught. They simply repeat what they
have read in a book. It is difficult to "feel" evolution
at work or to gain an emotional understanding of it, and
that is why science often feels cold.
In the last few years, many tens of
millions of people have been moving away from organized
religion into a more personal and spiritual sense of being.
The human race seems to be waking up and rejecting the cold
science of education or the dogma of religion. This
quantum change in thinking could indeed be part of the same
miracle that brought us life in the first place (link).
It could be part of a grander divine plan, with humans playing
a pivotal role in the change of the universal consciousness
and energy field. We started life's journey as material
substance, both in an evolutionary cosmological sense, and
also at the more recent intimate level of your birth and
arrival into this time frame.
Star Children 11:11
A Time to Wake Up.
Many Eastern religions have had yogis
(link)
and so on, all having tried to explain the sense of place
of the human in nature and as an evolving spiritual energy
force both collectively as a world society and as an individual.
It isn't a new concept, but a concept largely dismissed
by increasingly brutal and totalitarian religions and political
movements. But surely, there must be a moment in our
lives when consciousness is delivered into the material
substance? This happens more than once and can occur
throughout our lives - but only if we allow it to enter.
We have free will. But has it been corrupted?
The miracle of life was usurped by science and religious
teachings, all aimed at ridding you of your compassion to
yourself and to life itself. You became a chemical
collection of cells and hormones, and then you die. You
are also born with sin and require redemption through an
intermediary called the Church or Mosque. Many
people think like this, and they tend to control the rest
through taking power, money and influence upon themselves.
More spiritually minded people would rather marvel at all
the things Mother Nature has put into our world and our
immediate consciousness. This is the balance, the
Yin-Yang or duality of human nature on a collective level.
Both are crucial, but the balance is the most important.
Which type do you think is winning in this see-saw game?
Is humanity in need of more nature or more money?
Watch this video. It is very clever
and outlines both sides of the debate. We in the west
will tend to agree with the materialist on the left due
to our indoctrination and also learned logic, yet we also
want to support the man on right. But remember,
both men quote only what they read. They take
their thoughts from others and create a bias in their own
minds. But it is the same mind (same actor playing
both parts). Are we schizophrenic? One uses
logic and selfishness, the other uses compassion and fear.
Here is the hidden power of psychological social engineering
and control. Divide and Rule. We become
the slaves of other men. This is bad.
What we should do is rejoice at our
differences and a balance will ultimately be maintained.
Some greater NATURAL force is at work that is good.
Hostilities should end today, the
8th May, a significant enough date. Humans are
as diverse in consciousness as the nature surrounding them
and dwelling within them. Don't be trapped by what
you read, but become "Illuminated" and nature will flourish
accordingly.
No-one can tell you the truth - you
have to discover it for yourself.
If anyone read last months update on
the Wild Boar here in the Forest of Dean, you may have frowned
upon reading a prediction of mine - that an invented disease
scam is imminent. Well it took just 23 days for this
prediction to creep into the newspapers. I'm not going
to reveal how I know this, but you may now want to take
notes.
The prediction I made in March was a
lead up to a final meeting by the Forest of Dean Councilors,
who were calling for the Wild Boar to be culled. As
it happens, the meeting gained much support for the Wild
Boar, thanks to a talk by Martin Goulding and an eminent
ecologist called Dr Peterken. The science backed up
what people instinctively know - the Wild Boar are natural
ecological assets to the Forest as well as earners of potential
tourist revenue. Some councilors were not happy.
Within a week of this meeting, a very
strange event occurred. A photograph, allegedly one
from a Defra experiment at a Boar Baiting station here in
the Dean, was leaked to the press. It showed a boar
eating raw meat. How strange that just as the Wild
Boar were getting more friends, they hit the headlines as
being a possible source of disease like Foot & Mouth!!!!!
Now, just one week after this local
scare, the national press go full steam ahead on promoting
another Piggy issue - Swine Fever or H1N1 Bird Flu.
Please take notes
now :-): This H1N1 virus was produced
as a bioweapon in a laboratory using DNA from human,
pig and bird flu-infected tissue. Some of this tissue
was from stored virus samples from the 1918 "Spanish Flu"
pandemic (this is the bit that gives this particular flu
its approximation to the H1N1 virus type).
US Disease Control officials "detected
a virus with a unique combination of gene segments that
have not been seen in people or pigs before,” according
to an
Associated Press report. As this release states,
Swine fever in humans is rarely, if ever caught from pigs.
Furthermore, pigs don't seem to have caught this cold yet,
which is also very suspicious - we should really be calling
this human flu that may mutate to infect pigs!!.
Video Added 26.06.09:
A news report 25th June 2009. The
truth will always prevail... Read between the lines of the
daily news "hog" washing. The UK are now to set up
anti-viral drug distribution centres and swine flu testing
clinics - the foregone manipulated conclusion:- Enforced
vaccinations and/or enforced taking of the psychoactive
nerve agent Tamiflu or some other expensive drug that does
nothing to stop you catching the flu or stop the spread
of flu, but does make you sicker in the longer term (read
this).
And for those who will
dismiss anything as conspiracy crackers unless its in a
sweaty broadsheet, read this from the
Independent (date 30 June 2009).
And
Yahoo News and
Sky News and many others over the last 10 years if you
care to research this uncover the Tamiflu scandal and lie.
The government, WHO, and big Pharma are poisoning your children
ON PURPOSE. The side effects of Tamiflu are now being described
as the new disease to scare you: The idiotic puppets at
the BBC and ITV and CNN etc call it "Suspected Swine Flu",
as the symptoms are similar, but the after effects are much
worse. Now do you understand why it affects children and
not the elderly?
But we are being led to believe the
piggies are somehow implicated. Are there even experiments
ongoing on Wild Boar in the UK to infect them with Swine
fever? The use of baited meat perhaps? Mmmmmmm.
(I have been informed of the official response from Defra,
to be released soon to the press, that an officer did in
fact bait the boar using meat, but without permission from
senior staff. Do you believe it? I will keep
an open mind).
Research this topic
folks. You will soon learn a few other interesting
facts.
After the last Bird
Flu outbreak, investigations discovered that Flu vaccines
were contaminated with the deadly avian flu virus which
were then distributed to 18 countries by the American company
Baxter. The Czech Press (at least) asked whether this was
part of a conspiracy to provoke a pandemic. Since
the probability of mixing a live virus with vaccine material
by accident is virtually impossible, this leaves no other
explanation than that the contamination was a deliberate
attempt to weaponize the H5N1 virus and distribute it via
conventional flu vaccines. Spreading bird flu would
create an instantaneous surge of demand for bird flu vaccine.
The profits that vaccine companies such as Baxter International,
Novovax, Gilead and venture capital firms backing these
companies, could reap out of such a panic are astronomical.
However, this is not
the first time that vaccine companies have been caught distributing
vaccines contaminated with deadly viruses.
In 2006 it was revealed that Bayer
Corporation's hemophiliac injections were contaminated with
the HIV virus. Internal documents prove that after they
positively knew that the drug was contaminated, they took
it off the U.S. market only to dump it on European and other
world markets, knowingly exposing people to the live HIV
virus (watch
news clip here). Government officials in France went
to prison for allowing the drug to be distributed. The documents
show that the FDA colluded with Bayer to cover-up the scandal
and allowed the deadly drug to be distributed globally.
No Bayer executives ever faced arrest or prosecution in
the United States.
Do you also remember in 2001, Britain's
Foot & Mouth disease was traced to a government laboratory,
Pirbright, which is shared with an American pharmaceutical
company. Even Pirbright themselves at the start of
the "outbreak" tried to suggest that Animal Activists stole
vials of F&M from their high security military installation!!!
(Read about the latest court case against
Pirbright here)
And remember the debacle over the
Anthrax outbreak in the wake of 911? After all the
vaccinations had run out, it was found to have provably
came from a US military / CIA / pharmaceutical installation
called BMI or Battelle Memorial Institute (and connected
to Pirbright, UK)! When things like this are discovered,
the press go silent. Why?
And the last time there was an outbreak
of swine flu in the U.S., guess what? It too originated
at an army base (Fort Dix, New Jersey). (Important
-
Read this)
Do you still think these diseases
are natural? No, they are profit making exercises
for Corporations and a sinister way of controlling populations
by 1. Fear, 2. Disease, 3. Martial Law. This is the
New World Order at work. (Read this
document).
Solution: DO NOT TAKE A VACCINE no
matter how convincing the doctor on Breakfast TV or GMTV
appear! The vaccine will help spread the weaponised
disease to those who haven't taken the vaccine. Anyone
made ill by the Flu (Norovirus) vaccine in the UK?
Now you know why. (PS. Tamiflu pills are made by Gilead
and have been promoted onto world markets very aggressively
for many years by warmonger, Donald Rumsfeld - be very wary
of this pill).
Above all don't panic. This
virus will soon die, just like the last Bird Flu incident.
Stay fit. Drink water, take MultiVitamin pills and get plenty
of sleep. You are extremely likely to have some immunity
already. Once again, this is a nonsense panic perpetrated
by the media at the request of big Pharma. They will
keep trying.
Added 12.07.09:
I publicly declare as MY AFFIDAVIT to my government, health
officials, people of the world, and to God or any other
Conscious Power, that I am of sound mind and intellect and
that I hereby state that I refuse any vaccination, in particular
a flu vaccination of any sort, as is my fundamental human
right, instituted by (among others) the European Convention
on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act. I also refuse
vaccination on religious, spiritual and moral grounds.
I also refuse on the suspicion that the science of vaccination
is flawed. I also refuse on the grounds of historical
fact, some of which are outlined above, in that our world
Governments have previously coerced, manipulated or mandatory
administered vaccines to Real Lawful Persons in full knowledge
of the vaccines ineffectiveness and toxicity that has led
to suffering and death. I also elect that any child
of mine is also not violated by any vaccine. I understand
the implications of this and will take all care and due
diligence to keep my child healthy in other effective and
natural ways until such time the child can decide for itself
whether to accept a vaccine.
03:4 2009 - A
New World Odour - announced by yet another Puppet.
In 1841, the most
famous freemason and Satanist, Albert Pike, wrote in his
book " Morals and Dogma":
" THE GREAT FINANCIAL
CRISIS WILL HAVE TO BE CREATED TO THEN PRESENT THEM A "
NEW WORLD ORDER " AS A " SOLUTION" AND TAKE AWAY ALL THEIR
RIGHTS FOR THE TOTAL DICTATORSHIP"
Countless researchers
have been following this agenda, that started in 1776 as
America gained it's independence from the Banksters of Britain
and Europe.
Many times has it
been announced as a way for a leader to somehow gain credit
for what is far more powerful than any person or country.
Most famous of all is George Bush senior, on 9/11 (1990),
exactly 11 years before the more infamous 9/11 (2001).
This announcement was almost surely at the request of the
Council on Foreign Relations, an unelected elite think tank
working on behalf of the supranational corporations and
criminal banksters. At the head of this organisation
are Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brezinsky, both of whom
are major advisors to another puppet called Barack Obama.
Here is the usual
outline of what the New World Order stands for:
1. A One World Dictatorial Government
with a unified church and issuance of a single currency
under their direction.
2. The utter destruction of national
identity in the developed world.
3. Control and surveillance of each
and every person through means of database technologies
and mind control via the media and fear.
4. Depopulation of the world via birth
control, deadly vaccination, eugenics, spread of disease,
genetic manipulation and war.
5. To cause a total collapse of the
world's economies and engender total political chaos.
6. To take control of all foreign and
domestic policies of the United States and Europe.
7. To give the fullest support to supranational
institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, and the Bank of
International Settlements.
8. Penetrate and subvert all governments,
and work within them to destroy the foreign integrity of
nations represented by them (ie Iraq).
9. Completely organize and control a
world-wide terrorist apparatus.
10. Take control of education and food.
Added 6.6.09:
Canada hosts elite conference for major bankers and industrialists
"Adapting to the New World Order" (link
here)
Now, just because you can't see just
how so few can manipulate so much against so many without
ever being found out, then think again. This is actually
a plan manipulated by many clever people against huge numbers
of brainwashed people who don't understand much, and believe
in what the media say. Most people say they are worried
about overpopulation, disease, food shortages, corruption,
war, climate and so on, and willingly support policies such
as Mr. Brown's, in the ignorant hope that he his working
in their interest. But no. He is another puppet
working in the interest of the New World Order. They
create the problem, or invent it in the media, and get you
to decide the solution via the tabloids - the solution they
wanted in the first place and why they created the fear.
Where do you get your information about overpopulation etc
from? You have no proof of the problem directly have
you? Same goes for climate change being your fault,
and education needing targets, the hospitals needing more
money, and so on. You repeat the headlines down the
pub, just like you're trained to do. I read that...,
I heard this.... It's all nonsense folks. Think
for yourself and question everything.
"They shove it in our face
and laugh"
Gordon Brown is probably ignorant of
all of this due to his own indoctrinations and fears brought
upon him by the Corporatocracy. Each one person
or institute or media mogul gains great wealth for his advancement
of the agenda against you. And if you dare to stand up and
expose any of this, you or your character will be assassinated!
BUT, Mr brown, Obama, Kissinger and all the rest are fearful
of YOU and the rest of Humanity. We have deeply hidden
but significant Godlike power to rule over them. They
are, after all, supposed to serve US, the Divine masters
of this Earth. Albert Pike knew this, and so do millions
of Freemasons today, and are now a threat to the New World
Order. The New World Order are worried, but arrogant.
They shove it in our face and laugh. They use attack
via newspaper headlines, job losses, and promotion of yet
more fear, as their form of defense.
So get rid of the fear, stand up for
divine justice, and We will win over all of this.
I recently traded in my old Canon 5D
for the newer Mk2 version and the results from its first
test in
Andalucia are very impressive
(see parrot, wagtail, cattle egret). Not wanting to
bore you, here's the basic first impressions. The
price gives good value, but still a lot of money at £2,100.
Park Cameras traded my old version, so I paid £1,600, not
bad! Image quality is fantastic, but with an over-hyped
high ISO noise ability (I still wouldn't use it higher than
400ASA, but 800ASA results are reasonable) and the camera
is very easy to use (no complicated custom setups).
Improvements are file size; that is, if you want to submit
to agencies (8bit Tiffs are 60mb). There is an option
to take a reduced size of RAW file, but I don't see the
point of using this as standard - you buy this camera for
its huge files. Focus tracking is much better than
the older version, as I found it would lock onto quite small
moving objects (rock martins) even with complicated backgrounds.
Lastly, the LCD is large and a delight to use. The
first drawback is storage. I save my files as 16bit
Tiffs, so that's 120mb per image. Second, you cannot
edit nor convert the RAW file into TIFF using Photoshop
CS3 or even the ZoomBrowser software that comes with the
camera! You have to install the Digital Photo Professional
software (that comes with the camera) to convert yet this
doesn't allow editing of the RAW first. The only way
to edit the RAW is get yourself CS4, which is expensive,
or download Adobe's DNG convertor software. CS3 will
then enable you to edit the newly converted DNG file (a
sort of universal RAW). Personally, I don't see ANY
difference editing my RAW files versus editing the TIFFS,
but there you go, many think otherwise! Maybe it only
makes a difference if you don't know how to take well exposed
shots in the first place? In conclusion, this
is a camera only of real value to professionals and very
keen amateurs who submit work to Alamy or other agents.
Otherwise, buy the original 5D secondhand for around £700.
I've never been into films, so it was
a nice surprise to learn about Charlie Chaplin's The Great
Dictator. Written in 1940 it is a satirical look at
fascism, and for its date is outstanding. It was Charlie's
first talking movie, and what wise words he spoke.
It warms my heart to know that even world class comedians
have tried to open peoples eyes to what is often hidden
in plane view, and also suggesting a solution - of love
of humanity. In Charlie's case, the enemy was an obvious
threat on the UK doorstep. Today, the same ideological
dictators are still around us (Hitler died but his Corporate
ideals continue) and they are running your government, your
Europe, your America, your United Nations, your Banks, and
maybe your future Identity. What will you do about
it? Here's what another talented artist called Dan
Reed has to say - enjoy whilst listening carefully to Charlie's
words:
12:12 2008 - Crouching
tufty, hidden dragon: The amazing Kung Fu squirrels.
I awoke yesterday with phone calls from
the press wanting to talk to me how I got some pictures
of Cape Ground Squirrels fighting. Newspapers everywhere
had printed them, and there's even talk of them appearing
on the TV. I'd had an email from my agent basically
congratulating me, but I hadn't yet seen the message.
It was all a bit of a shock. Synchronous energies
at work again?
The quick answer to how I got the pictures
is sunburn. I had to lie down flat in the roasting
heat for a couple of hours, breathing in the white salty
dust of the Etosha Pan, and becoming totally absorbed in
the brilliant antics of my new found friends. It definitely
wasn't easy, and I had to delete most of them because of
blur, missed focus, or just getting a squirrels tail leaving
the frame.
By popular demand from my 2-footed friends,
I've re-vamped the African
rodent gallery for you to see the pics the press had,
plus a few more they didn't.
And now it seems the world has
stolen my images and put them on blogs
all over the place.
Fred Miranda's site (see link) for one, a very well
respected photography site - and if your looking Fred and
others, NO! The journalist from the SUN didn't take
the pics, and NO, I didn't use a remote trigger, and YES,
they ARE real! Any more of these allegations and I'll
send the squirrels round to sort you out!
What amuses me most about all this is
the fact that obviously people like the shots immensely,
both technically as well as the story and amusement vale,
YET, when these were put in the Wildlife Photographer of
the Year contest (2006!) they didn't even get a semi-final
position! Mmmm, and I thought back then it was me
with a poor sense of what a good photo is! Anyway,
I enjoyed taking these pics, and I hope you enjoy them as
much as I do.
This one floored me and I can't stop
wanting to love everyone on it. It literally brings
tears to my eyes each time I watch it.
One humanity
sharing the same crazy consciousness on the same crazy planet,
enjoying the cosmic joke that is life.
Please help to keep this dance going.
Think of others sharing this world because we are all the
same deep down. Don't be divided and closed down by
the media and politics and power forever pushing you and
me and them closer to war and hatred of each other.
Stand up for justice. Unconditional love. Learn
to resist your ego and go with your inner consciousness,
that bit inside you that has always been there and has never
changed. Project, then love the real you, for this
will bring the secrets of life itself for we are all united
and communicate with this identical inner consciousness.
Don't be controlled, don't become a number, don't be tracked
with a microchip. Enjoy....
The same stream
of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same
life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
It is the same
life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs
are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my
blood this moment.
I've just finished a long stint of managing
an engineering project to restore some former grassland.
I got few opportunities to take photos and for some reason
began to worry my photography was suffering. But no
sooner as my invented worry surfaced, I was asked by
BBC Wildlife to supply some Wild Boar photos for the
December 2008 issue (so look out for that), then on almost
the same day I was asked by Martin Goulding to help him
out with images in his forthcoming book on Wild Boar - how's
that for synchronicity? I do no photography
at all for a month, for the first time in years, start to
worry I can't "compete" with those who are "out there",
and people call me up wanting lots of photos!
My entire philosophies on life are going
through quite a change, a culmination, or reaction perhaps,
of all of my life as an atheist and a scientist. The
above example was further confirmation of my developing
belief in self-awareness and the synchronicity it brings.
When you practice this, things come to you - and you need
to follow them. I think it started when I was much
younger but didn't follow it. I was a clone of the
system.
I only began to challenge orthodoxy
during my PhD, which resulted in the usual mocking.
In 1990, as my PhD came to an end, I wanted to find funding
(via the Earth Sciences network) to study things like crop
circles and earth energies (in a scientific way of course).
It didn't happen as I was far too shy to shout loudly enough
above the ridicule (link:
Doh! I was 9 years too early! Leeds University is
the loser now). I ended up as lead scientist in a
volcanic eruption prediction study, using clever gas sensors,
in the vain hope I could have an exciting career and help
to save thousands of lives as well. In 1996, the invisible
hand of corporate control reared its unholy head and I opted
to leave the world of science for something more humanitarian
and honest. I picked up my old camera, signed on the
dole, and went for walks in the mountains to clear my head.
Strange thing is, I'm now meeting people
who are experts of the things I wanted to study. I
didn't initially seek them, they just appeared! Yet
these people are also fellow critics and researchers on
global warming, pharmaceuticals, 911, globalization, UFOs,
the Holy Grail and so on. All this time I was not
alone in my thoughts and fantasies. How can such disparate
knowledge streams and yearnings be so commonly held among
so many people? This is the University (of Life) I
always wanted to attend.
Image. 2008, a simple mathematical
message, a crop circle that amazed even the cynics.
I shall do a piece on Physical
Earth mysteries soon.
Through my OWN study and inner journey,
I've now shed almost all of my indoctrination. Everything
is clearer and I'm optimistic for the future when so many
people are beginning to stand up against the tyranny and
big-brother states that are unfolding across the world.
I now believe humanity can, if it wills it enough, create
its own future through the power of collective consciousness
without any need for war or violence.
"We must become the change we want
to see in the world". -Mohandas Gandhi.
What's more, I must learn not to think
about "competing" when it comes to photography or understanding
nature. "Going after" an animal is a basic urge (in
men at least) that promotes stress if "failure" becomes
possible. It is this urge that psychological Darwinism,
capitalism and the constant fear of something, controls
you. Stressed out, will you really "feel" connected
with nature, and will you remain frustrated or struggle
to be satisfied?
I dare any nature photographer to keep
the camera at home for a month and go for walks, slowly,
appreciating and respecting everything you see. In
fact, don't just see it, but feel it as well. Feel
nature as one, a whole ecosystem, a single source of energy
and wisdom. I'm sure you will be rewarded with a different
perspective if nothing else. My ambition is
now to capture this essence (see front page image of fungi
in sunbeam). And it doesn't matter if I fail.
I will enjoy the journey.
Wildlife photography is a deep passion
and also an outlet for the artistic soul. It gets
me close to the unconditional acceptance and truthfulness
of nature, something rare in humans, even close friends.
Here, there is no ego, no agenda, just LIFE, DEATH & LIGHT.
Image. 1996, it all started
for me with a Snake. A photograph that became runner
up in the
1997 Wildlife Photographer
of the Year Awards rekindled my early passion for the need
to understand the Natural World.
When you open your soul and accept there
is no greater authority than the inner and outer consciousness
and its potential,
things and people come to you
without you seeking them. The journey continues....
It's raining again so here's a joke.
For anyone who thinks ID cards won't affect them because
they never do any wrong...try ordering a pizza after 2012....
One of the most successful image libraries
of recent times is Alamy. It's an image library where
amateurs as well as professionals can submit images, and
provided they pass a fairly rigorous quality control process,
they will be uploaded for sale. This has meant that
Alamy has been flooded with all manner of photos covering
almost all the subjects you care to mention. Almost
14 million images are now for sale supplied by 5,500 or
more photographers and over 200 other agencies. The
downside for the individual of course is the huge competition
for sales.
About 12 months ago, Alamy were the
first and only library to allow the contributing photographers
to see how they "rank" with the other photographers.
I'm pleased to say I've been ranked within the top 100 contributors
since ranking began, was 10th for the last 6 months, and
currently positioned in 5th place. My pride hasn't
swelled too much since you have to opt-in to get your rank,
and only 1,594 photographers out of 5,500 have so far done
this. [type "bhz" as a search term to get the rankings].
As there are many photographers who
visit my site are also with Alamy, here is a breakdown of
my statistics for anyone who is interested:
Joined in late 2003 with a portfolio
of 46 images. I had a sale for just $81 within a month
of joining.
Had to wait another 8 months for the
next sale, but had another 5 sales in the next 10 months.
In June 2005 I added to my collection.
Carefully selecting and editing my collection, my portfolio
went to 150 images. The next 18 months brought in
a further 24 sales. I was now averaging 1 sale per
month.
The collection went to 180 in December
2006 and broke 200 by the following October 2007.
Sales by now had climbed to 50 in 3 years.
The collection has slowly been added
to and by August 2008 it was at 250, and has remained at
around this number ever since. Sales now average 3-4
per month.
My total sales now number 98 with a
gross income of almost $40,000 in 5 years (Alamy take a
30% commission from this, the Inland Revenue another 30%!).
I don't know what the secret is, honestly,
but good clean conceptual images aimed at the editorial
and marketing industry seems a key ingredient, and I will
never add images that look similar. I try not to add
subjects with a huge competition, although my African wildlife
photos have done quite well. I don't crop my images
by more than 10% of the original, but most of my images
are un-cropped. This helps with quality and I believe
this has led to many repeat sales from the same customers.
My best sellers are.....ah, that would be silly of me to
say! I'm not thinking of adding many more images just
yet as I want to concentrate on supplying my other agents
at the moment. But I know it would make sense to throw
hundreds more at Alamy. I may change my mind.
See how well the other agents do for me first.
I hope this helps anyone who has joined
Alamy. Ever since the dawning of the affordability
of digital photography, and all the evils that means (see
below), prices are now too low, and it is ever harder
if not impossible to make a living from stock photography
these days.
I find it harder each month knowing
what to post here. It's not that I can't think of
anything, rather the reverse. Do I make it photography
related cos after all, this is a photography site.
Or do I make it more interesting and make it Environment
related (often too depressing)? Shall I wander into
side-alleys and say something more pressing and political,
at least in my opinion, as I know many people like to read
this sort of stuff as it makes a welcome change from our
boring and dumbed-down TV.
I learn new things almost every day
now, and the saying that, "the more you know, the more you
realise there is to know", holds very true. But what
I do know is that something strange is happening to our
world right now. I call this the New World Order agenda,
some like to call it something else. It doesn't matter
what you call it, or like to "blame" it on, I instinctively
and also intellectually feel it is for real.
The so called Credit Crunch and "Bail Outs" are premeditated
inventions and are being manipulated to further some larger
agenda. Global Warming being your fault is another.
Population control another. Vaccination programmes
yet another. Peak Oil another.
Sadly, these topics take a long time
to research. To understand and believe in the "New
World Order", their beliefs and the modus operandi
can take many years. I'm now in my 11th year.
You may now have to decide who you believe in - "them" or
"us". Thankfully, I think that "us" are
getting through to more and more people each day.
There is a mass awakening going on.
It is quite spiritual, but we need each other to research
this and act upon it. This is old knowledge, or old
religions, coming to the surface again. It's
inbuilt into our collective consciousness or DNA if you
like.
So again I've decided that the Planet
and its people are more important than photography again.
I want to show something that is being kept from the mainstream
disinformation and indoctrination programme ("The News"),
and I hope you can be a skeptic along with me, open your
mind and ask yourself, "What if he's right?". Does
this explain a few things or does it make you knee-jerk
what you've been conditioned to do, and that is laugh or
ignore things that upset your belief about the world?
Time could be running out to change the political situation
as currently exists. Rumours are spreading that the
Internet is soon to be policed and only "approved" sites
will be allowed. You may soon have to pay a lot of
money to read non-approved information such as this.
Like it asks in the film the Matrix,
which pill do you prefer - your continued belief in a happy
illusion which may harm you and especially your children,
or the truth which may undermine your entire belief system
but at least you can now do something about it?
The 2 videos below are your pills to
see through the veil. To help you turn off the TV.
To reconnect with the people of the world, the environment,
its wildlife and all the other treasures that life should
be bringing you. They are strange, but you need to
believe them, to investigate for yourself, for you need
to reach such low points in your emotions to find the highs.
To escape. To wake up.
------------------------
Added 14.12.08
UPDATE:
I've now updated the first video that
was on here. This is the conclusion of the video that
was originally posted. You can still watch part 1
after part 2! Well done to those who spotted
this original secret message! I'm now happy to show
you this, because as it alludes in the Matrix, this rabbit
hole is very deep. It may shock you. But, this
IS IMPORTANT to see in the wake of the staged war on terror
and the staged bank bailouts!!! This also addresses
my position about the police!
I am saddened and sickened to be continually
thought of as a conspiracy nut. Not everything in
this video is true I'm sure, but there is too much evidence
to show that its main message is fact. Don't knee-jerk
this information into ridicule, it may save your life.
There is NOTHING more important than this issue. There
is a War on Freedom not terror. Love this planet and
its people unconditionally and you will beat it. There
is hope and I feel good.
PLEASE WATCH
(Both have full screen modes)
This lays out the game and the illusion........................................................THIS
IS THE SOLUTION
And God said, "Let there be Light",
..and he separated the light from the darkness.
Genesis 1:3-4
[or, The Illuminati (Illumination) was
separated from the People.]
I may put myself up to do public talks
on this issue. Please Email me if you would be interested
so I can gauge the demand.
An unelected United Nations front organisation
called Codex Alimentarius is a European Trade Commission
working in the interests of big Pharma and Corporations
that are hoping that by 2010:
1. Every animal used for food
must be treated with subclinical antibiotics.
2. Every animal must be treated
with growth hormone.
3. All food must be irradiated.
4. Seven out of nine previously
banned "Persistent Organic Pollutants" are to be reintroduced
into our food.
5. Herbal remedies shall only be available
on prescription.
6. Nutrients such as vitamins
and minerals shall be declared toxins and therefore controlled.
7. Definition of "ORGANIC" food
to be changed allowing for non-organic and GM pollution.
8. GM food to be widely introduced,
including terminator genes.
9. World population reduction
by disease and starvation will increase many fold.
Yes that's right. They may be targeting YOU.
Prince Charles' comments about GM becoming
an environmental disaster is the fallout of Codex (see below).
You will become ill, and the Pharmaceuticals
will profit from your illness.
"Education should
aim at destroying free will....DIET and injections will
combine, from an early age, to produce the sort of character
and beliefs that the authorities consider desirable...and
any criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically
impossible" Bertrand Russell, 1953
(Prophet of the NWO)
Please demand that your MP resists this
action and that this agenda is made mainstream and debated.
You are being lied to and kept in the dark about this truly
awful corporate and United Nations agenda. Please
Google "Codex Alimentarius" and find out for yourself......this
is not conspiracy theory.
So many reasons to fight this and the
other topics I have been helping to expose for 10 years.
Have a look at this video for an overview
of these 10 years (there is a full screen button option):
Don't let others do all the work for
you and your children. Spread this information.
Become part of the movement! I am.
(the small print: beware
that this may become an all consuming but beautiful passion
where you will wake up and meet so many enlightened people
who care)
Added: March
2009. This year's Alternative View Conference
is 29th - 31st May 2009.
7th June 2008 - Those
who find beauty in all of nature will find themselves at
one with the secrets of life itself - or, awakening the
inner consciousness....
2012 is the start of the wake up.........don't
be fooled by the agendas of others who want to stop it or
even claim it for themselves.....
2012 Olympic logo full of
Nazi-NeoCon symbolism.
The logo will not be rubbished...."it
represents a goal we believe in." Sebastian Coe.
2007.
The 2012 ceremony: "it'll
be about London, it'll be about us. And it's just revealing
a little bit of our DNA as we go forward". Sebastian
Coe on the Andrew Marr Show, August 2008.
Zion - The quest for a New Jerusalem.
A New World Order of the Zionist religio-political movement.
The beauty of the world may about to
be seen by all .......
7th May 2008 - Police State
turning on photographers now!
"Unthinking respect
for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." - Albert
Einstein
No surprise at all that the ever-increasing
surveillance and control grid orchestrated by the New World
Order has finally got around to turning on photographers.
The Metropolitan Police are urging the
public to report photographers taking photos on the street
in order to cut down on terrorism. What they are really
doing is stopping the reporting of peaceful protest, police
brutality and wrongful arrests of the innocent. Thankfully,
some MPs as well as the NUJ, BPPA and others are taking
seriously this infringement of liberty and freedom of the
press and calling for an early day motion.
"Those who give up
essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither
liberty nor safety". Benjamin Franklin
The police have started an
ad campaign (link) against
photographers. Photographers have now started a campaign
against the police using their poster as a template:
(Thanks to Wnjr for poster - very funny
and clever)
There is a Downing Street petition to
stop Police fascism
here.
VIDEO HIGHLIGHTING POLICE-STATE INTIMIDATING
BRITISH TAXPAYERS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS
Added October
20th 2008: And don't think this loss of
freedom is being perpetrated by just the British police.....this
is an interlocking worldwide strategy to control the press.
Read
here how photographers
are gassed and jailed for attempting to highlight the truth
about everyday law abiding Americans speaking out against
the Rise of the Fourth Reich.
And now there's examples in Greece and
France of the same....
Added 8.5.09.
The score so far:
Citizens and tourists detained and searched
by police under section 44 in the last year = 102,000 or
280 people per day (up 300% on last year).
Innocent people in the UK killed by
police under section 44 of the Terrorism Act = 2.
Terrorists caught or killed = 0.
Having become a bit of a pessimist in
recent years, I have been proved wrong twice this month
that the environment can never be of greater global importance
than capitalism and money. The first bit of
news is that the Maltese
government have been ordered by the European Court of Justice
to stop killing birds in the Spring. The Maltese are
infamous for their ruthless hunting of anything that moves.
Widespread cultural trapping and storing of the smallest
finches in cages, pilled to the ceilings in storehouses
for weeks, are used to lure other birds into range of a
shotgun. Birds killed are often pickled and eaten
as delicacies! A lot of these birds are migrants on
passage between Africa and Europe, and some commentators
have blamed this wanton destruction on the huge fall off
in numbers of our more common garden birds.
The second snippet of good
news is that the large
scale wind farm proposal for the Lewis (Outer Hebrides)
peat bogs and wilderness area has been turned down by the
Scottish Government. Of course, there are two sides
to this result, the worrying side being a stronger push
for nuclear energy. I worry that the applicant will
keep resubmitting amended proposals of the wind farm, as
happens in most house building applications, until the right
number of backhanders have been agreed.
Although not news as such, but I was
delighted to find yet another organization who not only
state the Al Gore and the Climate Doom prophets are purposefully
misleading the media and the public for some hidden agenda,
but claim that it is LOSS OF TREES that is causing the carbon
dioxide levels to rise. This organization, "10
BILLION ACRES FOR HUMANITY" seem to have a much
more plausible and balanced argument for climate change
than anything you will have read in the mainstream puppet
media. As someone who has been around the world to
see the scale and impact of rainforests on the life of this
planet, the destruction that is going on in these places,
I totally agree and applaud this organization for their
stance.
Now for the down. A rich
entrepreneur is making waves, or actually not, by submitting
an application to
build a barrage across
the Wash Estuary! The Wash Estuary is perhaps the
premier wildlife site in the UK. It is also protected
by
many designations, including
one under the European Ramsar Convention.
This is obviously a spin off to the
similar environment wrecking proposal across the
Severn Estuary. Everyone
wants to spin their damage as saving the environment in
terms of Global Warming. Here's where the doubters
of this myth may start to understand the truth and the transparency
of the lies behind the
Great Global Warming Conspiracy.
This entrepreneur, Peter Dawe, merely claiming himself to
be "a businessman" is hoping to get corporations and organizations
to partly fund this private scheme.
This is going to be a test of how much
protection the designations such as "Ramsar Site" and "SSSI"
really have. Are these labels just pleasing box-ticking
afterthoughts because nobody wanted to destroy them at the
time of designation? The Severn Estuary is also a
"RAmsar Site" and internationally important area for wildlife.
It even includes places such as Peter Scott's famous Slimbridge
Wildfowl & Wetland Reserve. But this looks as if it
will be damaged by a barrage that is well down the path
to planning consent.
I only hope that any corporation contributing
to either barrage scheme will receive the huge backlash
and adverse publicity they deserve.
Oh, and as an aside to all this, who
is also amazed that nobody in power is getting angry and
wanting to protest about rising fuel prices. Believe
me, this is also a scam and a test of the British mentality
who now seem to accept regular abuse and deterioration of
their standard of living because of an underlying myth or
two, i.e.
Oil supply is finite and
climate catastrophe is your fault for using this oil.
Mmmmm, if oil is running out, then no need to worry about
future global warming - it will sort itself out of course!
It makes sense. "THEY" need to start building barrages
and wind farms quickly before the scam of
Peak Oil and Global Warming
are simultaneously blown open by you and me, your MP, and
brave journalists who seek the truth....SOS
The heat is warming up on something
and it's certainly not the climate: No this one isn't
a joke or a myth, it's about the Wild Boar here in the Forest
of Dean and the UK as a whole.
The guns are coming out folks.
One of our truly native wild animals (unlike fallow deer,
rabbits, hares, pheasants, mandarins, grey squirrels, etc)
is getting the chop again, thanks to the hunting lobby,
the blood lust and ignorance of the Forestry Commission,
the puppet media and the gullibility of a public who have
lost all connection with the natural world.
The BBC are pioneering the death of
the Wild Boar. Two BBC programs have recently been
aired, one of which I was interviewed for (BBC Breakfast
News). Both of which Dr Martin Goulding also gave
his side of the story. No surprise to either
of us that our opinions on the good and gentle side to these
animals were edited out of the programs. Indeed, a
huge slice of air time was given to a farmer who is claiming
the wild boar are killing her cows! I've never heard
such rubbish. Other folk are claiming they are prisoners
in their homes because of these savage beasts roaming on
their doorstep.
Bah! Wake up people. Where
is the journalism here. Why is this tripe being kept
in the documentaries when anything to the contrary is chopped?
What happened to evidence and seeking the truth? Now
I don't expect many of my readers to believe me about manipulation
and conspiracy regarding the serious stuff I write below
(all's it takes is a little net-research though!), but surely
we can see the lies and spin of this affair. Wild
Boar are trivial subjects on the world stage and yet even
here, there's manipulation and brainwash for you to become
subservient to. Surely then, we are being lied to
about important issues like terrorism, global warming, WMD,
viruses, and so on and so on.
If the wild boar are to serve the public
in some way before their guts are blasted about every tree
by the sniggering gung-ho men in camo gear from the Forestry
Commission I at least hope it is to show everyone once and
for all how we are all being lied to by the media and our
so called leaders!
This is not an April Fool, it's an Everyday
Fool, and the joke is on you, the boar, the innocent iraqis,
the tax payer - unless you stand up and fight it.
Martin Goulding's Site for an informative
view.
Footnote: I've been informed that ITV,
at least, have attempted a balanced view (ITV 2 Meridian
Channel). Thank goodness for some journalism.
Please BBC (James F?). If you
read this then get in touch.
Today we are told, in the UK, that
the winter's worst storm has caused disruption and fear
across the country. WELL. Did you feel anything?
Were the waves larger than in a normal winter? Did
the gusts make you think something abnormal was going down?
I hope you can see objectively and say NO! Of course,
the underlying theme of this propaganda (and propaganda
has an hidden agenda) is to make you think that this is
global warming and it is YOUR fault. The media now
believe this tenet is unquestionable and therefore does
not need spelling out. They want YOU to claim that
the solution to this problem is to accept global warming
is your fault and to give up more MONEY to a swelling gravy
train.
But objective thinkers see otherwise.
They see the spin. So, has global warming becoming
tepid?
“Reason obeys itself; Ignorance
submits to what is dictated to it”
Thomas Paine
Thanks to the power of the internet,
the only "real" freedom of speech and information tool still
available, the world’s greatest global warming profiteer,
Al Gore, seems to be exposing the myth for what it is.
MONEY!
For sure, Gore has led the "cut-your-energy
consumption" climate-change issue since his infamous and
now thoroughly discredited film An Inconvenient Truth,
for which he received a Nobel peace prize. Gore has
led government debate on how YOU are causing climate change
since the 70s, and has written profusely on the subject
in many of the "mainstream" journals of the day.
If this were you, in the spotlight
and making a new rich living leading a cause you believed
in, would you...
Drive 5
cars 500 yards from your hotel to the screening of your
own film An Inconvenient Truth at the Cannes
Film Festival?
Increase
your electricity consumption by 13.5% over your previous
year, to now equal more electricity than 20 average
American households combined? This is the same
year your book and “documentary” calls on everyone to
reduce electricity use.
Claim to
offset your huge carbon footprint by buying carbon credits
from a company (Generation Investment Management) of
which you yourself are the Chairman and Founding Partner?
Well you may, since Gore has gone from being
an almost $Millionaire during his election campaign against
his cousin, George W Bush, to an awesome $100M as a doom
and gloom merchant. All thanks to Your and Your Government's
(or unelected, unaccountable Federal Union's) "belief" and
support that Global Warming is Your fault.
But if that isn't enough, Gore has recently
become a partner in the venture-capital firm, Kleiner, Perkins,
Caulfield and Byers. Here he fronts their “Greentech”
division — a strategic alliance with his own Generation
Investment Management. Thanks to human gullibility,
he stands to rake in tens, maybe hundreds of millions as
KPCB and GIM make profitable fees from “green” start-up
firms that Gore helps to secure funding for or are sold
off.
Added 2nd October 2008:
Carbon Tax Credit-Trading System Hidden in Bail-Out Bill:
Stealth launch of trading in fictional carbon-based funny
money to make Gore and other traders very rich at your expense
(Details of Bill:
pages 114-115).
So take a moment to think about polluter
Gore and his profiteering as your behaviour is being manipulated
to stop using airplanes (cutting tourist revenue to underdeveloped
nations) and to accept and pay through the nose for more
and more green taxes, forcing your standard of living ever
lower.
And what if the world doesn't warm
and the polar bears don't die? Congratulations everyone
- your MONEY has helped save the planet from catastrophe.
But we must keep it up. Keep the MONEY coming this
way please.....
A cold and cloudy Norfolk photographing
Barn Owls ended the long spell of wet weather. Chris
Grady, Brian Davis and myself shared a cottage for a few
days and enjoyed such delights as marsh harriers, snow and
lapland buntings, bearded tit and several barn owls.
The snow and lapland buntings turned out to be far too easy,
being habituated to seed on the beach at Salthouse (see
images), so it was the challenge of the barn
owls that we were most delighted with.
This was the first time any of
us had attempted photographing these birds, and despite
finding the light levels very low (higher than normal ISO
and difficulties locking the tracking focus on the birds)
we all thoroughly enjoyed the chase. We were
thrown out of one field by the landowner after we strayed
onto it in our excitement of following an owl in the car
then a quick dash out to follow it onto the field in question.
But another landowner was so pleased that someone was enjoying
"his" owls so much, he invited us back to his house where
several were nesting each night. We also found many
owls near Holt, and one in particular seemed to have it's
routine of flying up and down the same field time and again.
Learning where the owls would be and their pattern of hunting
made life easier, and it took just a day before we were
getting good pictures. We also thought we were getting
good at creeping up on owls, especially the time we carefully
stalked one to within 10 metres via bramble undergrowth,
careful to keep the trees between us and it, only to find
it was a large white mark on the top of a stick!
Other highlights were the 12 marsh harriers
at Cley Marsh (image
here), two fighting stoats
also at Cley, and the delighted whoops from Brian after
winning his first ever Trivial Pursuits! (he might be clever,
but he did forgot to bring along his camera kit on a photography
holiday!!!!!). We have all vowed to return to get
stuck in to a proper session of owling, so look out for
better pictures in the near future.
November 2007 - UK
Wildlife Photographers lag behind
I've recently been upgrading my image
bank. To me, that's the number of images I have in
my head of other photographers' work. I recently attended
the WildScreen symposium at the Royal Photographic Society
in London which confirmed to me that the British style of
wildlife photography is too clinical and formulaic (aka
boring?). The images that went into the memory bank
where all from European or American photographers. Franz
Lanting's presentation (and book) on Life was stunning (link
here) and truly inspirational.
Maybe the difference is because British
wildlife is much harder to find and is very timid.
Grab shots or setting up feeder stations (artificial outdoor
studios using food as bait) seems to be the norm in Britain
whereas elsewhere, carefully planned and executed WILD photos
are more the norm. Maybe the British weather is also
to blame because: A. it's not nice to spend fruitless hours
in a hide in the cold, dull light or rain, and B, the British
are a soft race that like their comforts :-) Of course,
I couldn't say with certainty that images from elsewhere
didn't start life as a baited experiment, but the end results
are often totally different in style and atmosphere.
If I could generalize at all, I think that lighting and
realism are crucial and the unconscious essence of a brilliant
photo. The formula approach tends to erase any mood
by the misuse of white balance, levels, etc in photoshop
- and that's before the insidious overuse of cloning things
out. Don't follow the crowd. Don't listen to
the self appointed teachers of what a good photo is.
My advice is to remember this,
The perfect shot is like the holy
grail - a dream and not a material possession - it's in
the heart.
Include as much natural history into
the shot as possible. Use a wide angle lens and make the
most of what you can get close to. Don't fall into
the trap of just being a birdwatcher with a camera and a
big lens. Slater's law now states,
"The more uncomfortable you are,
the more likely the photograph will be better".
Get lying down in the mud, sit for hours
until your bum is sore, stay out in the rain, get up ridiculously
early in the cold of the morning, stay out late and catch
the last rays of dusk. All these situations produce
new angles, light, and moments that are unusual, and therefore
more interesting.
One last thing concerns baited wildlife.
Here in the UK baited hides have not taken off too well.
Rich photographers regularly go off with British companies
to Scandaniavia, Eastern Europe or America where this practice
is common. Some individual's on the continent are
also promoting their baited setups so they can earn from
wildlife photographers. Once again, this approach
leads to photographs that everyone has. They may be
stunning (eg. go to
Mate Bence's site) but
soon enough we will start to yawn in full knowledge of how
the photo was achieved. Baiting wildlife for profit
can also lead to bad consequences. The Sea Eagles
on Skye have been baited using fish for some years now so
that wealthy photographers can take the short cut to stunning
images. But now the seals eat the fish, and the Eagles
go hungry, maybe even die (chicks especially) now their
regular food source has dried up. The ONLY people
to blame for this are the wildlife photographers, not the
fisherman attempting to exploit this trendy market.
I am delighted
to be asked once again to join a scientific expedition
to the Sulawesi rainforest base of Operation
Wallacea.
The area is renowned for
its high biodiversity and high number of endemic
species. This factor led Alfred Wallace to
propose theories on the origins of species in the
late 19th Century. In today's global human
environment, wilderness is suffering, and many species
are burdened with enormous survival pressures as
a direct result of our activities, especially corporate
irresponsibility. The loss of biodiversity
has been called by E. O. Wilson the "folly for which
our descendants are least likely to forgive us."
Groups such as Operation
Wallacea are determined to discover, through
non-profitable scientific means, the exact nature
of the threats and losses to many sensitive regions
of the globe, and are working with local communities
and governments to provide solutions for all to
succeed.
I hope to bring back many inspiring
photos from the trip, and will update this section on my
return in early September.
Nicobar Pigeon - a threatened Indonesian
rainforest species.
The government is expected today to
give its blessing to build hundreds of thousands more new
houses in floodplains. I sit in my house today in
Gloucestershire with several friends who are homeless, quarter
million people are out of drinking water, thousands without
power, due to flooding!
The fact that the government cares little
about houses in floodplains is PROOF that those in the know
are confident that climate change is nothing to worry about.
Just as dangerous, but undebated by
journalists and politicians, is building in the immediate
catchment areas of floodplains. This is also continuing
at a dangerous level.
It has long been realized that houses
in floodplains destroy marshes, wetlands and other soakaways
that prevent rivers bursting their banks. The same
is true of the soils across the catchment areas. Every
tree cut down is a step towards a flood. Today's protection
measures, encompassed within planning guidelines, are a
joke as developer after developer has removed natural soakaway
and replaced it with concrete and pitiful drainage systems
or barriers that are often unscientific and spun to give
confidence to committee members who vote these developments
through (often with a cheap house as a backhander to boot).
One common trick by developers is to raise the land above
the 1 in 100 year flood line before covering it in bricks,
concrete and tarmac. Are developers writing planning
policy?? Are we, the Sheeple (people acting
like sheep and following the herd without question), buying
these houses thinking all is ok??
As a doctor of hydrogeology, I was cited
in several newspapers over 10 years ago that this would
happen, as I studied and fought several housing developments
in Banbury, Oxfordshire, and also in Mountsorrel, Leicestershire.
I met with environment agency officials, town planners and
even the council ecologists, but to no avail. These
people are simply morons or puppets in a centrally-controlled
machine they have no sway over. Solution - DO NOT
BUY A HOUSE IN A FLOODPLAIN even if you are given assurances
it is protected. That assurance is a lie, and that
house is directly responsible for flooding someone else
further downstream.
High rainfall events in summer months
are not new nor have they suddenly increased in their ferocity.
But as soakaway has been drastically removed in the last
decade through blind planning and inadequate hydrological
assessments, the dangers have rocketed astronomically.
Those in power have been simply crossing their fingers,
sitting back in their million pound houses as the profits
from the house building industry have rolled in. In
recent times those fingers have uncrossed slightly thanks
to the convenient myth that we are all to blame for extreme
weather events (note that climate change theory predicts
hotter summers and wetter winters LOL).
We don't need the houses, this is another
myth spread by these dangerous fanatics of corporate greed,
and climate change is not to blame for the floods.
It is greed and ignorance that is to blame. What we
need is more environmental awareness among the voting public
and appreciation of our fantastic landscape and ecology.
November 2006
- KILLING FOR SPORT:
How Gamekeepers are Devastating Britain's Wildlife
"For as long as men massacre animals,
they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the
seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love."
Pythagoras c550BC
Here's a subject I am learning more
about and feel I should highlight what so called "Gamekeepers"
are usually up to in their quest to rear non-native species
so rich clients can blow that animal's brains out.
This aspect of gamekeeping is NOT conservation in any sense.
Our wildlife are under enough pressures these days with
habitat loss and encroachment of humans. Wildlife
Photographers in Britain often wonder why their wildlife
are so nervous and elusive - this is why....
More than 12,300 animals are killed
by gamekeepers in this country EVERY DAY!!!! According to
the Game Conservancy Trust, as many as 4.5 million mammals
and birds of prey are killed annually in a largely unreported
and frequently illegal programme of predator control. Gamekeepers
snare, trap and poison these animals to protect the millions
of game birds shot every year by wealthy businessmen and
tourists who are keen to experience a day or weekend of
country shooting.
Animals, including protected badgers,
foxes, hares, stags, owls, kestrels, domestic livestock
and even pets, die often excruciating deaths.
To give just one example, a 'vermin return form' sent to
Sir Jocelyn Stevens by a gamekeepers on his Millden estate
in Scotland records that in the single month of April (2001),
gamekeepers killed 698 rabbits, 37 hares, 19 stoats, 23
crows, three magpies, three jackdaws, one rook, three foxes,
two "feral" cats, six gulls and one stag.
There are currently 2000 estates
and farms involved in this industry, which claims to be
one of the country's fastest growing 'sports'. These establishments
include some of the oldest and most prestigious estates
in the UK. Amongst those willing to pay £400 to £2000 per
day for a day of shooting include Madonna, Guy Ritchie,
Vinnie Jones, Bryan Ferry and Marco Pierre White. It is
unlikely that any of these people have any notion quite
how bloody their new hobby is or how much of Britain's wildlife
is dying to support it.
The rich and famous who shoot on
Viscount Cowdray's Sussex estates are probably unaware that
one of his gamekeepers narrowly escaped prosecution for
the widespread use of illegally set SNARES in woodland managed
for pheasant shooting. This particular estate has been rife
with other offences.
Click here to see an image
of a snared badger.
Only a small percentage of wildlife
crimes are ever detected. But those that are reveal
a flagrant disregard for wildlife protection laws. The large
number of prosecutions involving offences committed in the
immediate vicinity of game bird pens is a clear indication
that this calculated slaughter is all about protecting an
industry and nothing to do with the conservation gamekeepers
claim to have as their primary goal.
A small sample of prosecutions in
the past seven years include: a Hampshire gamekeeper fined
for using live mallards and jackdaws as decoys in traps,
a Norfolk gamekeeper killing three kestrels, an Essex gamekeeper
asphyxiating three fox cubs, a trainee Norfolk gamekeeper
setting pole traps, which have been illegal since 1904,
and a Buckinghamshire gamekeeper charged with 16 offences,
including snaring, trapping and killing badgers, owls, foxes,
a sparrow hawk and a buzzard.
The information contained in this
report will shock many. Let us hope it also leads to improved
legal protection for wildlife, including a ban on snares,
and proper enforcement of laws.
The above is an Excerpt from a report
by Douglas Batchelor, Chief Executive, League Against Cruel
Sports. October 2003.
September 11th
2006. Thinking of all those killed
by the American government since 911, including those within
the 3 imploded towers that fell that day and the Pentagon.
The million innocent children are also remembered who were
killed by sanctions imposed upon the Iraqi and Afghan people
by the American government and the American-controlled UN.
Let's also not forget "our" soldiers dying through "our"
own government's treasonous acts. This includes 450,000
US and UK guinea pigs (soldiers) still dying through exposure
to our own WMD, an atomic weapon called depleted uranium,
that was scattered around the Gulf in 1991 in full knowledge
of its effects (read
more). This dangerous contamination cannot
be cleaned nor will it ever die away.
I also remember the freedom that I and
many millions of Americans once had and will continue to
lose in the next 6 years.
"Observe good faith and justice towards
all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with ALL"
George Washington.
"After every ''victory'' you have
more enemies" Jeanette Winterson
August 25th 2006.
The Evils of Digital are here...
For some time now I've been attempting
to put forward my vision of where digital wildlife photography
is heading. I've been on one well respected forum
(NaturePhotographers.Net) without
any success of converting one of the many digi-manipulators
on there. In short this vision is a future where wildlife
images will no longer represent the real world. They
will even be total inventions where the photographer will
no longer need a camera - just lots of cash and a big computer.
Don't believe
me - then please go to this site and have a look at the
dinosaur photographs of Kim Taylor!
Images are being
over-manipulated, due largely to perceived demands from
the "market" for "perfect" images (this is just a poor justification
used by those who are guilty). Firstly this demand
does not exist. The "market" only takes what is offered
by photographers. This "market" is largely picture
editors who are not photographers and ask no questions about
the ways in which a photo was derived. Professionalism
in wildlife photography is tenuous with little to distinguish
this class from the amateur other than consistency of quality
and volume of images taken. Amateurs take their lead
from professionals, and since that is increasingly one of
holidays in baited hides, tame wildlife, and computer manipulation,
everyone will soon be partaking in the ILLUSION. It
as already begun, although I actually suspect the manipulation
part is being driven more by the amateurs than the professionals.
Professionals don't have the time or the need to manipulate
their images all that much!
Wildlife photography
urgently needs a code of ethics. One that picture
researchers are aware of. Thankfully, the major photography
competitions still resists manipulation of the image (but
for how long?). After all, they want the image to represent
a skill with a camera rather than a computer.
Of course I'm
also guilty. Below is one example of a manipulated
image (nightjar and moon). I have often taken these
sandwich shots on slide film by using the double exposure
setting, but with digital it is even easier. This
is just the thin end of the wedge, followed by cloning out
small distractions, that is rapidly leading to in-computer
dinosaur as well as ordinary wildlife photos. 99.9%
of my images, however, contain NO manipulation (including
cloning out) whatsoever. I have only ever photographed
tame wildlife on 4 occasions, and have only paid £2 to use
a baited hide (Gigrin Farm). Where is your line in the sand?
I've made a small effort this year to
locate and photograph the elusive Nightjars in the Forest
of Dean. What an enjoyable challenge! The long
spell of warm weather has made the essential night time
visits a joyful experience with cool temperatures and the
lovely aroma of pine and heathland all around. Just
before true darkness descends the eerie whirring chirrups,
screeches and wing claps of the nightjar signal their approach.
As the mosquitoes tuck into bare arms and legs I've witnessed
several close passes of the birds, some chasing others,
but most simply inquisitive at my presence as they glide
over my head. The spectacle never lasts long, a half
hour if your lucky before darkness halts progress, and the
long march back to the car begins with the chance of a grabbed
glow worm photo on the way.
The darkness was almost complete when
I made out that this bird had landed in a tree about 40
metres away. It took a 30 second exposure at +2 stops
exposure and a good guess at the focusing to produce a very
pleasing image with superb detail being captured - to my
eyes it was just a black blob against a dark evening sky.
Added
April 29th 2008:
POLAR BEARS are doing great! WWF research shows
stable or increasing numbers except where cooling of the
ice sheet is making it harder for them to hunt. (Added Nov
5th 2008: WWF have removed their own findings from their
own website!).
Added
March 20th 2008: NASA scientist and
global warming alarmist
is abuser of data. Global Cooling is more likely.
Added
8th January 2008: Read
this letter to the UN signed
by many climate scientists.
Added
29 May 2007:
Article here on how
the IPCC editorial board masquerade as scientists and spin
the lies about anthropogenic climate change.
Also
read
here the many scientists
who submit articles to newspapers and journals stating how
the current myth of global warming being our fault is dangerous.
And
yet more articles
here
in case you're still not convinced).
One of the foremost
environmental scare stories of the modern day is climate
change. Deforestation, ozone holes, meteor strikes,
etc are no longer talked about by the media or politicians:
they must have been solved now I guess? (Yeh right!).
Climate change
is a natural phenomenon. Our climate is driven on
a geological scale by variations in the plate tectonic setting,
erosion of the land by releasing CO2, sedimentation on land
and under water by absorbing CO2, algal and plant abundance,
solar activity, and the angle the earth makes to the sun,
and ocean currents. Ocean current are always changing
due to variations in water temperature and the geomorphology
of the ocean (that constantly changes with ocean floor spreading
and volcanic activity).
Man has been
on the planet for an infinitesimally small time. He
has grown to influence an infinitesimally small component
of the geological process in the last 200 years, namely
ecological imbalance and release of CO2, H2O, acid vapours,
particulates and so on from geological deposits called "fossil
fuels", and especially during times of war (we are still
feeling the effects of WW2 in terms of atmospheric and land
pollution).
Carbon dioxide
and methane are proven "Greenhouse gases" that reduce the
escape of heat from the land into space. This heat
comes principally from the sun, the rocks themselves (the
earth is heated internally by radioactive and thermodynamic
processes), and from organic activity. Water vapour,
particulates, and acid vapour are proven heat sinks.
They remove heat from the atmosphere by thermodynamic and
kinetic reactions, and by reflecting the sun's heat back
into space (the albedo affect). Such heat sinks are
produced by volcanoes (90% of eruptions is water, and this
water is believed to be the origin of the oceans) and man-made
industry - his most successful industry being WAR.
Carbon has
6 protons
6 neutrons
6 electrons
and is the essence of life on earth.
Models that predict
global "warming" are at the mercy of the data that is input
into them. This is done by humans with biases.
Such models are few and far between, with the most eminent
being sponsored by world government institutions.
I mean, ask why it is that US-controlled institutions like
the UN advance controls on world industry via climate protocols,
yet the US refuse to sign up to them? Control!!!
Empire building!! Dictatorship!! The US military-industrial
complex understand the science is weak and manipulated,
but they will enforce it on others nevertheless for there
own advancement via US-created "front organizations".
(The entire environmental movement is, at it's core, controlled
in the same way, via bodies such as the Club of Rome, WWF,
and I now suspect the RSPB as well with its policy of pro-climate
control yet being against wind farms). (See also Schwarzenigger
promoting a
Global Warming Tax.)
None of the climate
models include the effect of cloud formation (water vapour)
on the heat budget of the earth. None suggest the
effect of particulates on the heat budget, not only from
human activity but also from volcanic eruptions. None
explain why satellite data monitoring the entire earth surface
(rather than pin-point land based analysers) show a net
cooling across the earth's atmosphere. And none explain
the fact that ice is actually accumulating across Antarctica,
where 90% of the Earth's ice resides! And this is
where the ozone hole is! 55% of the world's mountain
glaciers are actually advancing, but this is never mentioned
in the mainstream propaganda.
Why is it then,
that the Arctic is focused upon in the media-dominated Northern
hemisphere? Because it's closer to home, but also
because the Artic is actually undergoing some warming, or
is it?.... Maybe this can be explained as a reaction to
the cooling at the Antarctic (the accumulating ice here
is causing a shift in heat balance between polar regions?)
or because ocean currents are changing - also explained
by lop-sided cooling at the poles as well as through tectonic
processes.
More likely,
the explanation is the fact that the present cold period
of the CURRENT Ice Age is finally at its end and natural
warming is now starting (the sea-level is at its lowest
since the start of the last great ice Age and a new warm
inter-glacial about to begin). Maybe because the Arctic
IS closer to us that we are affecting it through low-atmosphere
pollution (particulates melt ice, giving the appearance
of warming). I don't know, but warm interglacial
periods have always been good for trade and civilization.
IF the Artcic
were to to melt wholesale, and some model-orientated and
biased scientists stake this, then NO sea-level change would
occur due to the displacement affect of ice in water.
Sea-level rise is another naturally occurring event controlled
by tectonic activity, but is being used to scare us into
conforming with the disinformation - the tenet that global
warming is YOUR fault! Rubbish.
Cooling of the
earth has been going on since it's creation. We are
moving further away from the sun, and the earth's core is
cooling. If it were not for "Greenhouse Gases" we
would all be dead. These keep the planet warm enough
for life to thrive. It is countered by the water vapour
(clouds) and particulates in the atmosphere. If the Earth
warms, more evaporation of the sea occurs forming more clouds,
and hence cooling - it's in check. No model includes
cloud affects on the global warming model due to lack of
understanding, their complexity and difficulties in numerically
evaluating this effect for a model.
This Earth we
share with all other forms of life regulates itself all
the time, YET allows moderate changes for life to have evolved
into the wonderful array we see around us. Moderate
change is driven by plate tectonics and extraterrestrial
events, not humans. Carbon dioxide is plant and algal
food. Lower the CO2 concentration and plants die back,
and visa versa through the creation and destruction of tropical,
ocean and other habitats dominated by plants.
Unless we wake up to the lies, man will destroy himself
through war and politics long before his natural time is
up.
February 13th 2006 -
Goose
Step by Goose Step by Goose Step....
"Behind
the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government
owing no allegiance
and acknowledging no responsibility
to the people". T. Roosevelt (US President)
"It is dangerous
to be right when the government is wrong"
Voltaire
Whatever happened to
the Bird Flu? That wave of deadly virus sweeping the
world, then.....nothing!We are a gullible species. No wonder we've
wreaked environmental catastrophe after catastrophe over
the centuries. Our leaders don't pedal in facts or
truth, and our scientists are the products of an ever increasing
indoctrination of disinformation (some call it education)
and commercial ideologies. We have lost our way as
a society when it comes to the environment and indeed common
sense. I urge everyone to begin to open their minds,
realize the spin and act more intuitively. You may
help save the lives of millions of animals, humans and several
species in the process.
"Only
two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity,
and I'm not sure about the former". Albert Einstein
Ask why are we being
fed this fear propaganda again and again. Foot & Mouth,
SARS, Global Warming, Water Shortages, Food Shortages, and
yes, Terrorism (the pedaling of fear to advance your agenda)......
Who is to benefit from all this?Their method is to control you through curtailment
of your freedoms of action and thought, because this allows
the military-industrial complex and their groveling puppet
liars to rule the world like fascist dictators. Yes, these
people are terrorists and human rights abusers. They
destroy lives and the environment without a second thought
if it serves their long term agenda.
"TELL A LIE LOUD
ENOUGH AND LONG ENOUGH AND PEOPLE WILL BELIEVE IT."
Adolph Hitler
If we fall for it, by
2012 there will be in place a "New World Order", officially
introduced no doubt at the London Games (we won it due to
a voting irregularity?!), that seeks to microchip every
new born baby. Thumb scans / biometric data / DNA
samples will be commonplace by then, and indeed, has already
begun now (some volunteers have already taken the microchip,
and some schools in the US only allow schoolchildren to
get their meals after a thumb scan, and more and more nightclubs
are being told to introduce this Orwellian invasion in the
UK and elsewhere - i.e. get the teen generation, parents
of the 2012 babies, familiar with it now!).
"When fanatics are
on top there is no limit to oppression"
HL Menken
The final push to get
you to accept this Nazi dream will be after the next orchestrated
fear event - a chemical / nuclear / biological attack!
Vaccinations with nano-particles are also on their way.
Does the orchestrated war with Iran make you worry?
It should.
This isn't paranoia
or a need for an explanation, it's a need for the truth
and an end to the lies and your loss of liberty.
Please make your voice
heard and demand answers. Go to your MP, the press
and especially your friends to let them know what you have
discovered after researching this topic (see video jukebox
above, and Google topics such as WTC7 collapse, PNAC, 911
Truth). Do not be scared of being different - this
is their weapon they use against us all the time through
use of the puppet media.
"All that is necessary
for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing".
Edmund Burke
"I
do not know with what weapons World War 3 will be fought,
but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones".Albert Einstein
It's Sod's Law as we say, but Zambia
was to be many things that weren't supposed to be!
Never before had Jenka and I planned a safari so finely
with a list of subjects to photograph for clients and agents,
and never before had I set off with the image of a country
being so poor and surely so cheap to survive in? I
was WRONG!
Our trip soon revealed itself to be
an old style safari packed full of breakdowns, road blocks,
changes of plan, with the distinct paradox of being very
expensive. To boot, the animals I had hoped for were
being elusive (lion, leopard, elephant) which led to heighten
our growing frustration with the country.
The cost of living here, even for locals,
is outrageous, comparable with America in terms of fuel,
most foods and luxury goods. More expensive were the
park fees and if you wanted to live in moderate comfort
(i.e.scruffy lodges or tented camps) you're looking at $200-400
PER NIGHT!!!! Bring the bank manager with you!
What was a nice surprise was the friendliness
of everyone we met. Zambia is a harsh country that
brings people closer together. Shared tales were common
- of corruption at Police road blocks (expect to be ripped
off by corrupt police), hardcore off-road driving experiences
(most people have palm sweating tales) and not to mention
the insatiable appetite of the Tsetse Fly. For once,
we were able to meet and enjoy the company of fellow travelers,
and life long friendships have been hopefully forged.
Such was the adventure of the driving,
the corruption and to be truthful, the shoddiness of the
entire tourist industry here, the wildlife photography was
in perpetual danger of taking second place. What we
were getting was a "normal holiday" of meeting people, lazing
by swimming pools, drinking beer.....but without the luxuries.
But don't let all this put you off Zambia
as a wildlife photography destination. To be fair
it is good. There's no Etosha or Chobe or Masaii Mara
here, just South Luangwa and Kafue to be honest. All
other parks have either been ruined by hunting or poaching
or are specialist (Kasanka and Benguela Swamps fall into
this category - birdwatching with telescopes only!).
Of course, our impression may be wrong, especially as I
was here in the dry season. After the rains the country
becomes green and lush and birdlife abounds to such an extent
that maybe you can get close to it - I don't know.
We came at the height of the dry season
to hopefully make finding predators more easy - concentrated
herds of prey at the few remaining waterholes was our impression,
but as Sod's Law kept reminding us, nature is full of surprises.
So with the predators proving elusive
by day we tried night safaris. This added some unwelcome
costs to our trip but we did SEE leopard and lion - but
PHOTOGRAPH them we did not. Safari guiding here is
still well behind the rest of Southern Africa in terms of
quality. Many, if not all guides, seem dull and unexcited
by the animals. "That is a blue duiker, that is a
puku, there is a Pel's Fishing Owl", the list goes on but
the enthusiasm doesn't. Nothing is added to the otherwise
mundane name of the animal in question. Successfully
explain to them about lighting for photography and the importance
of keeping the vehicle motionless to prevent camera shake
and your a better person than I. Expect to have many
photos lost to your imagination or the bin. The choice
is to get your own vehicle at huge expense ($100 per day
minimum) or chance it with the guides at $25-35 per half
day (normally 3 hours). I prefer the former because
included in this price is an unforgettable driving experience
in untamed Africa. I shall tell you no more to keep
it a surprise!
One exception to the harshness of the
Zambian experience is Livingstone. Stay a while in
the sheer luxurious surroundings of a well run tourist industry.
Some things here are actually value for money such as a
whole day white water rafting, including 3 meals, for US$95.
Victoria Falls can be visited for US$10 (or US$0.5 if you
say you're a resident - nobody questions it!). Be
warned, however, crossing into Zimbabwe is no longer cheap
- US$50 for UK, £US$30 for USA residents.
All in all, despite the hardships (that's
Africa as they say) I'm glad I went and the memory of South
Luangwa and the Zambian people is a fond one. Please
feel free to
e-mail me for advice of
where to stay / car hire / itinerary etc.
Coral Cay kindly paid for me to go out
in May 2003 to their conservation site in the Negros rainforest,
deep in the Philippine archipelego. This is one of
the world's most threatened habitats as well as a biodiversity
hotspot - maybe the hottest? This was my third professional
rainforest assignment in 3 years and I have to confess,
I get more excited about these ecosystems each time I go.
Rainforests such as these are becoming increasingly threatened,
and it is only through the work of organisations such as
this that both the unique wildlife and its place in local
culture can be understood for the future.
I met people from the Negros Forest
and Ecological Foundation Inc. (NFEFI) who are striving
to promote ecological awareness to the local people. This
awareness includes the potentials of sustainability and
economics through better use of their precious land and
teaching children about the wonderful wildlife around them.
NFEFI are a great bunch of the friendliest people you can
hope to meet and I am indebted to them all - and thanks
for a great night out!.
Kodak kindly provided all my film needs.
_________________________________________________
As featured on ITV's "THE BILL" in late
May 2004 !
A front cover featuring my photo!
This stunning giraffe shot was taken in Kruger National
Park in 2002. I was rushing to the gate as usual (they
fine you for being late out of the park!) when this guy
decided to get in my way. Opportunities like this
don't happen every day so I risked the fine. I got
to the gate on time, but I was a bit naughty with my speed
that evening!
_________________________________________________
Here's a song for you
(This is the first ever news item I put on my website back
in 2001).
sing
to the tune of "When you're happy and you know it" If you cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq.
If the markets are a drama, bomb Iraq.
If the terrorists are frisky,
Pakistan is looking shifty,
North Korea is too risky,
Bomb Iraq.
If we have
no allies with us, bomb Iraq.
If we think someone has dissed us, bomb Iraq.
So to hell with the inspections,
Let's look tough for the elections,
Close your mind and take directions,
Bomb Iraq.
It's "pre-emptive non-aggression", bomb Iraq.
Let's prevent this mass destruction, bomb Iraq.
They've got weapons we can't see,
And that's good enough for me 'Cos it's all
the proof I need
Bomb Iraq.
If you never were elected, bomb Iraq.
If your mood is quite dejected, bomb Iraq.
If you think Saddam's gone mad,
With the weapons that he had,
(And he tried to kill your dad),
Bomb Iraq.
If your corporate fraud is growin', bomb Iraq.
If your ties to it are showin', bomb Iraq.
If your politics are sleazy,
And hiding that ain't easy,
And your manhood's getting queasy,
Bomb Iraq.
Fall in line and follow orders, bomb Iraq.
For our might knows not our borders, bomb Iraq.
Disagree? We'll call it treason,
Let's make war not love this season,
Even if we have no reason, Bomb Iraq.
![[Kodak]](images/kodak.gif){kind=small}
