The online presence of Tim Collier. Photographer, course leader, lecturer and blogger.
It’s been a little quiet on the site lately, I’ve been posting images on Instagram lately as it seems a decent platform to display images. I have to say as well it’s been good to follow some exceptionally talented photographers who throw you into new ways of thinking and imaging, so all good so far!
From my early days as an aspiring photographer I would take any opportunity to learn the craft. At that time I was hoping to get a small folio of images together that would help in getting on to one of the very few photography courses in the country at that time.
One of the first projects we were given when I started my documentary photography education at West Surrey College of Art and Design in Farnham, back in the early eighties, was to find a local newspaper story that had no images attached to it and go and make a photo story out of it.
Over a difficult summer I’ve not been able to do half as much work as I would have wanted, Covid and other problems have meant far fewer hours out and about, but when in Liverpool, helping out with mum after the first lockdown, I was able, on a good number of evenings, to spent time with Swifts.
Mellon Udrigle is a small crofting settlement strung along the western shore of Gruinard Bay. Suilven and the mountains of Coigach dominate the view from a turquoise sea and a pristine beach of broad white sand.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been searching to get photographs of birds singing. It’s meant generally early mornings, but on any lockdown walk I’ve had the camera handy.
One of the best moments of my recent dawn chorus walks was coming across a Song Thrush that, apart from the odd interruption by a Blackbird, sang for well over half an hour. It was also pretty apparent that it was slightly down the pecking order as it ceased singing each time the Blackbird came along and dropped down a couple of feet from its high perch!
On waking on this morning and looking out of my window at 4.00am it was apparent that there was a cloud inversion happening, and I needed to get out quickly and somewhere with a bit of height to get the best of it.
First light and many of the songsters were in full voice and the sound of Willow Warblers seemed to be everywhere.
Still on the dawn chorus set and the early part of the day, which offers so much to the soul and to the image maker. This little set were taken just as the sun rose above the skyline and a whole world of webs suddenly showed.
Llantrisant common is just up the road from where I live and it’s a place that you can get a real sense of being well out of anything approaching urban, and that’s despite an Industrial estate being on its doorstep.Continue reading
The dawn chorus has been more evident for me this year and that’s for a couple of reasons.
There are a few iconic species you hope for when heading to Mull and we were fortunate to see them all. The Otter showed on our last day and the Hen Harriers gave great scope views but were always a little far for photography. Both species of Eagles didn’t disappoint and Red Deer were numerous but better at dawn and late evening.
On the Saturday we arrived, whilst in the hide at Fishnish we got onto a second winter Iceland Gull whilst scanning the 80 or so gulls around the fish farms a couple of hundred meters or so off shore. It gave fine scope views but was far to distant for any photography.
