David Ward - Landscape Photography - Into The Light

Highlight this Comment KK31/12/2008, 22:38

Hello David,

On behalf of the Scottish Greek Cypriot Large Format Fraternity (militant wing) may I be the first to wish you a prosperous and productive new year. Well that's enough non-confrontational stuff to last till the next new year. I'll be back.

KK

Highlight this Comment Jason31/12/2008, 23:32

I think the New Year will offer fresh opportunities to change direction for all of us and I look forward to the journey...

Happy New Year to you all, and thank you for your in-depth thoughts...

Warmest regards,

Jason

Highlight this Comment Nigel Simmonds01/01/2009, 13:32

Hi David,

I wish you and your family a very happy New Year, and hope that 2009 is photographically valuable for you.

I think it's fantastic that you take the time and effort to maintain this blog. I enjoy following the discussions that take place although I only rarely contribute. Please, keep it up!

Highlight this Comment Robert Teague01/01/2009, 20:45

David,

My best to you as well. May your vision be true, your shutter speeds accurate, with perfect lighting.

As we say in Hawaii, "Mahalo" (thank you) for all you do on this blog.

Highlight this Comment Peter02/01/2009, 12:15

365 days full of opportunities... maybe a little drizzle, rain, snow, gales, direct harsh light... yes, many opportunities! :-)

Thanks & a HAPPY NEW YEAR David.

Highlight this Comment Dorcas02/01/2009, 12:33

Happy New Year to you and your family. I have really enjoyed reading your blog over the last year and look forward to 2009's.

Dorcas

Highlight this Comment Charles Twist02/01/2009, 13:48

All the best for the New Year, David!

I am sure things will turn out for the best.

Kind Regards,

Charles

Highlight this Comment Paul M03/01/2009, 09:43

Best wishes for a happy and productive 2009 to you too David. 10 resolutions for 2009:

• Buy less equipment than last year
• Carry less equipment than last year
• Reduce the number of formats I use (to just 5 ;-))
• Visit more interesting locations (with L&L obviously!!)
• Read John Blakemore's book
• Make a successful 'tree detail' image
• Make a successful image!
• Use differential focusing more creatively
• Stop copying others
• Stop making resolutions I can't keep!

Cheers, Paul

Highlight this Comment David O03/01/2009, 14:21

As part of the "Help David" campaign and by way of inspiration for 2009, I decided to google you (apologies, it sounds like an invasion of privacy). For "David Ward", it tells me you are:

• a wedding photographer (God help you!... with apologies to purveyors of this fine art)
• a liberal democrat parliamentary candidate for Bradford East (More help needed but never say "never")
• a comedian: a friendly, upbeat comic with a cynicism that gives his comedy a unique gentle bite (This could be you!? Best joke?)
• a designer from Belfast living in Edinburgh (Have you told Jenny?)
• a film maker of low budget films
• an artist (Nice picture on website;-) and
• a Dr at Guys Hospital

Whoever you are or decide to be, be yourself! BTW, did you know (and I presume you do), you are running 2 websites... very flamboyant!

Happy New Year.

Cheers

David

Highlight this Comment David03/01/2009, 15:14

Hi David,

I've always had this feeling that I was more than just one person... now I know where the voices inside my head were coming from! Choosing which one to be might cause me a few sleepless nights... Comic or doctor? Maybe. Certainly not a politician or, worse, a wedding photographer! No offence meant but I'm just not suited to that way of life. Probably easier to stay who I am, whoever that might be.

Actually if you count the old "Oceans of Instants" blog I've got three websites – of course only this one is worth looking at!

David

Highlight this Comment Sandy Wilson04/01/2009, 11:35

To David and the rest of you fellow bloggers.

A guid New Year tae ye all, and lang may yer lums reek.

May the light be with you all on all your future photo explorations.

From a wily exiled Scot living in Andover Hampshire England.

Sandy

Highlight this Comment Elizabeth05/01/2009, 00:32

May all your dreams become opportunities.

Highlight this Comment Peter Roworth05/01/2009, 09:47

Happy New Year to everyone and hope you all have a successful 09 in your work, play and hopefully through your cameras.

Peter

Highlight this Comment Alice Strange13/01/2009, 00:24

Happy new year, David. May 2009 bring you good health, good heart and a reinvigorated mojo. With best wishes from the Scots-Kiwi Printmaking Sorority (guerilla unit)

Highlight this Comment David13/01/2009, 09:35

Hi Alice,

Good to hear from you and thank you for your New Year Wishes!

I have a question; why is it that ex-pats living in Scotland have such pronounced militaristic tendencies? Obviously this insight isn't based on a representative sample as I only have you and KK as examples. Is it the only way you can keep your own identities from being eroded by contact with a corrosive Pictish/Gaelic/Celtic culture? No, that can't be it. Is it maybe that you're both just bolshy ;-)

Highlight this Comment Sandy Wilson13/01/2009, 10:09

David,

Perhaps Alice and KK, like me, do not want to lose their identity living in a foreign land.

Regards

Sandy

Highlight this Comment KK13/01/2009, 14:23

Well I cannot speak for others but aside from "bolshy" various terms have been used in relation to me (or at least the me that I might on occasion care to show, being a strong believer in the 18th century view that we have personalities rather than the tedious modern reduction to one personality). Amongst my favourites is "curmudgeon." Many other epithets have been applied but decorum forbids me from mentioning them on this high minded blog.

As to my identity, I seek not to preserve it but to lose it, especially in the Highlands of Scotland which I regard as my natural habitat. As to Gaelic culture I devote quite a lot of time to it (I don't think we have much idea of what Pictish culture was, well I don't). In any case I am more of a pacifist anarchist; militant wing of course ;-).

KK.

Highlight this Comment jason13/01/2009, 14:43

What is identity anyway when there is a collective unconscious? (Did anybody see the swarm program the other evening? Fascinating ideas about the individual verses the collective, brings parallels to Carl Jung collective unconscious ideas) Anyway, must get back to work, just a quickie,

Jason.

Highlight this Comment adamp13/01/2009, 22:24

Ah yes, the swarm… it made me think of the way photographers all point their lenses in the same direction when the sun rises – or sets. Having said that, even at sunset and sunrise, if there is enough beauty around us we point our lenses in all sorts of directions as well as up and down, thereby showing that we all see the world in different ways. Vive la difference! Have fun but be good...

Adam

Highlight this Comment Richard Childs14/01/2009, 20:30

A happy new year to you David and all the other avid readers of this blog from the Scots/Anglo-French Canadian photographic section (4x5 commando)!

Fancy a day on the hill without cameras when you come up at the end of this month?

Highlight this Comment Alice Strange19/01/2009, 23:24

Now don’t get me started on identity … is it acceptable for a bloggee to initiate rants or is that a privilege reserved for the blogger??? ; )

Since I was born & bred in Scotland (Clydeside Red faction), my guerillahood can hardly be blamed on identity-conserving skirmishes with the natives. Perhaps I’m just a grumpy old woman... : )