Slimbridge Bird Scanctuary (WWT)

This weekend I managed to get to the Slimbridge centre, basically to scope it out some and get a feel for the kind of place it was, and I feel that there is some potential there for me depending on where I want to go with my project. What I liked about this place was the variety of birds they had there, from very exotic to pretty common ones, and it was all wetland birds, which has never been something I've really looked at before. The issue I had with the place was it still seemed very controlled and touristy, I went on Saturday so predictably there were alot of children around so was pretty noisy, but the birds still hung around and didn't seem too phased. They generally seemed alot more tame than I would like to look at, which is a shame because parts of it were really good. As I had limitted time there, I didn't really get too look around the whole place, but I did go in a coule of the hides, which I really found valuable. The first being the Horgarth hide, which faced out over the south lake marsh and scrape, where there were alot of waterfowl, including cormorants and a grey heron as well as more common ones such as plovers (common in winter) and various types on ducks (like tufted ducks and golden eye ducks, which are diving ducks).

While it was good to see such a variety there, I feel that I need to focus on one type of bird perhaps, and look at it as an individual, rather than trying to cover everything. I salso felt that with the selection, there were not alot of typical British birds, which I feel would be good to cover, not only as they'll be more available, but because it'll be easier to find information out about them from local and specialised sources.

 Goldeneye duck

 The South Lake Mrash

 You can just about see the Grey Heron and a Courmorant

 Benwick Swans, which are common winter birds, especially round Gloucestershire.

Greater Flamingos, which are part of the centres collection of foreign birds.

Neeta Madahar

http://www.saulgallery.com/chronicle/madahar.html

Neeta Madahar's project Sustenance is a collection of images she took of bird at the feeders from her balcony. This project, while about the birds, looks at the themes of habits, especially in the way that you can see some birds coming back time after time. At the same time looking at the idea of change, both the changing of the seasons and that some things never change, like the feeders always being there. You can also see sense of simplicity, and how there are simple things in the world to be fascinated by and that sometimes these have parallels with the wider world, but on a smaller more innocent scale.

I find comparisons in my own work with this as I enjoy the seeming simplicity of wildlife, and the contradiction of surviving being difficult for animals as it is for us. I like that you can draw a comparison between and animal and a person, in the way that we give our pets human emotions, and that we find it hard to think of them simply as things of instinct, though there may be an aspect of emotion in animals it's hard to prove but is certainly a fascinating concept.

Found this article..

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080430075912.htm

Something to think about. Do birds be less likely to come near when you are looking at them though the idea that a predator will turn it's eyes and head? Probably, as a bird has to be on the look out all the time and notice as much as the can so as to not be eaten.

Marianne Mueller

http://www.steidlville.com/books/216-The-Flock.html

The Flock is a mouths long project Mueller did which centres a man who breeds and cares for pigeons in Brooklyn (John Mandato), which has the rooftops as the context for the pigeons. It looks at the pigeons almost as art forms in the city, and at the obsession of one man which may seem crazy to other people who consider pigeons a pest. In the book I like that there are pages which are filled with the pigeons flying, I think this is an impacting image because it shows a lot of movementand the silhouettes of the birds are very graphic and dramatic.

http://www.mariannemueller.ch/selectedwork/theflock/theflock_page01.html 
This has most, if not all, the pictures from the book in it.

http://www.wwt.org.uk/visit-us/slimbridge/

I think out of the bird sanctuary's and centres around here this one from Slimbridge looks to be the most promising. It's website says that there are 13 hides around the area including over the lake and a specific Kingfisher one, which would be good because I've never seen a kingfisher.

Cheltenham to Cam Dursley - £3.70 off peak return (with rail card) then 4 miles to the place, but I could bike that. But that does involve going across the M5 and some tricky looking roundabouts, I'm not sure how confident I am with doing that. The issue with getting to these places are that I can't drive and there never seems to be a bus or train sation that gets me to walking distance. I suppose I could walk the 4 miles, but it still involves getting across busy looking roads.

http://icbp.org/index.html

This is another place nearby which offers a similar experience to the Owl centre, I'm not sure I want to do a photography day there (this one is £80) but I think it would be valuable to get some information about local areas where you can see wild birds of prey, which are especially interesting as they're particularly elusive than some other birds.

http://www.barnowl.co.uk/

This looks interesting because they probably have a lot of information about where I can see wild owls and where are good places for birds. They do photographys days where you pay £60 for 5 hours where you can take pictures of the owls and birds of prey flying and such, but I feel this defeats the point.

Westbury-on-severn

A picture I found of the starlings at Westbury. I like these kind of images because it shows birds acting as a unit, in much the same way a shoals of fish do. I love it when you get patterns, which is similar to when you see birds fly in formation when they are migrating.

http://www.terry-wall.com/Gallery%2012%20terrys%20latest/content/_1937578774_large.html

Some squirrels just for fun

 They were making things difficult by jumping around and shuffling all over the trees scaring the birds.

Some more shots

On the other side of the scale in photographing birds, I have been looking at getting very focused and conventional pictures such as these ones of a Robin.

These are fairly standard pictures (which I was lucky to get as the Robin decided to sit in front of my face), but I don't think they are very interesting beyond the obviously, and I think the idea of this project is to get into the meaning and create depth in something you can engage with, and I'm not sure these really cover it.

Some shots

As I have decided to change my idea straight onto the birds, I have been thinking about how I can make it more interesting for the audience rather than having it just pictures of birds.

 With these ones I was thinking about how you usually see birds in trees and bushes, more or less hidden. So with these, instead of moving around to try and get a clearer shot, I purposely looked though the branches to get an idea of the environment it's in. I also didn't want to bring the birds out too much so it's almost a struggle to distinguish them from the leaves, which is obviously what the birds want.

These are, what I think is a male, Great Tit and a female Blackbird.

I do like this idea as it's another way of photographing birds, but I'm not sure if the audience will perceive it as just lazy shooting, and question whether I actually thought about it and can actually take a good and clear picture.

http://www.iwm.org.uk/exhibitions/shaped-by-war-photographs-by-don-mccullin

This is another exhibition of Don Mccullin's at the imperial war museum. This is a totally different exhibition from the Tate one, as it's specifically about his war photography and how it's affected him and the audience. It's got other bits to do with his time in war zones such as his Nikon F which effectively saved his life after it stopped a bullet hitting his head. I also want to go see this one as his war work is something I take a lot of influence from as it's what I want to do with my own photography.

http://channel.tate.org.uk/media/1115319613001

An interview with Don Mccullin considering his exhibition at the Tate Britain.

I found this interesting because I really respect and admire Don Mccullin as a photographer, and my favourite picture of his are usually war images, and he says in the interview that he doesn't like being considered a 'war photographer', he actually says he hates it. I found this quite shocking at first, being as those are sometimes his more impressive photographs, but I can understand where he's coming from when he talks about how he started to take the memories home with him and he felt guilty about what he saw and woke up in cold sweats, so I can see that when you do something that intense for long enough it become meaningless for you and just makes you despise what you do. He says he likes doing landscapes now as when he's in the English country side, he's not hurting anyone, he's not affecting anyone.

Birds

 Just some bits, looking at birds, mostly. I think I'm gonna change my project idea, and look at my wish to go bird watching as it was something I really enjoyed when I was younger.

http://www.icanhasinternets.com/2011/10/german-advertising/

Just a random selection of photos I found which are advertising a German Job finding website, and I just thought it was an interesting way of messing around with people perceptions of things.

Pill boxes

http://www.btinternet.com/~palmiped/pillboxes/pillboxes.htm

WW2 coastal military defences in Norfolk

Just a funny thing

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/spending-the-night-in-an-abandoned-military-base-on-acid-raf-upwood

http://www.rafupwood.co.uk/buildingsandhangars.htm

RAF Upwood - Disused air field where many of the building are in disrepair and much of the original characteristics are disappearing