I am Fiona Wallace - a retired educator who worked in the industry training sector, the secondary school sector and latterly the FE sector. Over the years, I have taught Horticulture, English to Higher level and Communication - predominantly communication skills for wannabe sports coaches.
I have dabbled in Photography since about 1997, using a Pentax film camera initially before moving on to digital in and around 2003. I have used Olympus gear since then and I curently use OM-1s for my main interests of wildlife and sports. I have also traded in an older EM Mark II against an EM5 Mk3 which is used for Street/Documentary images and as a travel camera for when I don't have either the space or the need for the OM-1 and larger lenses.
I recently spent the dogs' inheritance on the Olympus 150-400 lens and am loving it. My go-to lens, however, remains my 40-150 which is a terrifically versatile lens.
I have dabbled in Photography since about 1997, using a Pentax film camera initially before moving on to digital in and around 2003. I have used Olympus gear since then and I curently use OM-1s for my main interests of wildlife and sports. I have also traded in an older EM Mark II against an EM5 Mk3 which is used for Street/Documentary images and as a travel camera for when I don't have either the space or the need for the OM-1 and larger lenses.
I recently spent the dogs' inheritance on the Olympus 150-400 lens and am loving it. My go-to lens, however, remains my 40-150 which is a terrifically versatile lens.
I don't consider myself truly a "photographer" yet as to me that implies a thorough knowledge of the camera. I have advanced a little from my dabbler days, but I am now spending my retirement in trying to advance both my knowledge and my skills. It never ceases to amaze me just how much I still have to learn in both of those aspects.
My preferred genres are Wildlife, Sports and Street/Documentary, but I also enjoy urban landscape and Events. I greatly admire good portraits but it is not something I really want to involve myself in. Too much faffing about with heavy things like lights. Similarly, I love looking at great landscape photography yet I don't try it myself very often. Bizarrely, I can sit in a wildlife hide for hours on end and not bat an eyelid at the thought, yet ask me to wait ten minutes for the light to change on a landscape and I get fidgety. Ah well.
As a dedicated joiner of things (for which feel free to infer that I tend to butterfly about things that interest me. Well okay, I'm a bit obsessive) I am a member (somewhat inactive) of the Guild of Photographers and hold their Qualified status. I also leapt for a brief while out of obscurity in 2022 and won a Scottish Photographic Federation Gold award for my image The Burrower which you can see in my Owls section. My main thing currently is the Royal Photographic Society, which I held off joining for a bit because of my lack of security as to whether I was good enough. (Or to be more honest until I qualified for their "senior" rates. I refuse to use the word "pensioner.") I have recently achieved Licentiate status with the RPS and am moving on to the next rung up - Associate.
Other than that, the routine trade of photography is plied through being a member of Irvine Camera Club who have a great mix of photographic ambition, skill and being jolly good fun people. They also swear a lot so I have a great sense of belonging.
As a dedicated joiner of things (for which feel free to infer that I tend to butterfly about things that interest me. Well okay, I'm a bit obsessive) I am a member (somewhat inactive) of the Guild of Photographers and hold their Qualified status. I also leapt for a brief while out of obscurity in 2022 and won a Scottish Photographic Federation Gold award for my image The Burrower which you can see in my Owls section. My main thing currently is the Royal Photographic Society, which I held off joining for a bit because of my lack of security as to whether I was good enough. (Or to be more honest until I qualified for their "senior" rates. I refuse to use the word "pensioner.") I have recently achieved Licentiate status with the RPS and am moving on to the next rung up - Associate.
Other than that, the routine trade of photography is plied through being a member of Irvine Camera Club who have a great mix of photographic ambition, skill and being jolly good fun people. They also swear a lot so I have a great sense of belonging.