The online presence of Tim Collier. Photographer, course leader, lecturer and blogger.
It seems as if the worst of the last storm was felt very close to home on the south Wales coast of Porthcawl and the west coast of Aberystwyth, both featuring on the national news. I was away at the time but was aware of the conditions that had been forecast close to my family home a couple of miles from the Mersey estuary in Liverpool.
Second day in the hide – 500 avocets, black and bar-tailed godwits and dunlin – the hide tide had pushed them all onto the Bowling Green Marsh on the Exe estuary. I was in the hide early enough to watch the avocets arrive, they came in three pulses.
Islay’s about the perfect destination in winter if you love both geese and a good malt. For such a small island it has a wealth of fine distilleries and they are wonderfully located. Eight distilleries in such a compact area all responding to the natural characteristics of the island.
Back on Islay and some of the landscapes. We were fortunate in having some really fine light and looking at the weather that’s around now we definitely hit a little purple patch.
More to come from Islay later but I managed a few of days down on the Exe estuary last week, again in search of getting some images of geese, dark-bellied brent this time from arctic Russia, in the context of the estuary. It was also an opportunity to witness a spectacle that has to be one of the finest in Britain, the population of avocets that flock in large numbers to this part of the world during the winter.
Islay has more, much more, to offer than just geese and the other wildlife that’s on offer, but when you’re only over for such a short time it’s difficult to get a sense of it all.
Following on from the previous post this set once again aims to give a sense of the broader context in which the geese are experienced.
I’ve never seen lesser white-fronted geese in the wild or red-breasted geese but you have a chance to get close in and personal with them, and other more common British species, at the WWT centres.
Whilst I was waiting for my brother to pick up his passport from the Durham regional office back in the summer (I’ve a bit of catching up to do!) and listening to the Ashes on TMS, I noticed a common tern fishing by a weir on the Wear. We were due to visit the Cathedral later on and as per normal I carry the 50 -500mm with me at all times.
A recent trip up to Scotland gave an opportunity to visit and experience the Gulf of Corryvreckan from close quarters. It’s somewhere  I’ve wanted to see properly close up for many a year. I’ve passed it by on a number of occasions, first on family holidays back in the sixties then taking my own kids to have a look as we sailed towards Colonsay.
On a recent trip down to Falmouth to attend my youngest daughter’s graduation (Press and Editorial Photography) Â I was able to grab some time to get out with AK Wildlife Cruises on one of their day long pelagic sea trips.
The Elvis festival began in 2004 from fairly small beginnings but is now it’s one of the largest in the world attracting Elvis’s from all over the globe. It has become something of an essential player in the local economy as well, worth close to seven million pounds but remains a tad surreal when you find yourself listening to a pretty good Elvis playing in a fish and chip shop!
A group of students on our new photojournalism course at the University of South Wales covered the Elvis festival at Porthcawl this weekend and their work was showcased on BBC Wales news online.
The new academic year has started and our first year students are involved in a number of photography shoots during their induction week. Today saw a collaboration between the music and photography courses that are run at the Atrium.
A series of images taken on the river Taff. It doesn’t matter what your working with there’s always a real feeling of excitement when your around any activity and the aim is to find the one shot when it all comes together.
I finally managed to catch up with a bird that has been a little elusive for me over the years, the only other sighting I had was at Dinas some four years ago and that could only be described as a glimpse.
The scheduled August walk had to be cancelled due, would you believe, to bad weather! So a rather quickly arranged date was agreed – we needed and still need to  compile enough images that place the walks into a context and time is running out.
The main reason for visiting Northumberland was to see my brother’s exhibition, The Resilience of the Wild, at the Customs House in South Shields.
