Finding your online community
FACEBOOK has always been a revelation to me, not least because when I opened the Laughing Badger Gallery in 2009, my posts about the business, including the Cellar Bar Sessions and exhibitions, drew in the most people.
The immediacy is remarkable, and it remains the mainstay of LB promotion, now of course since I sold up in December twinned with Howard Town Brewery Tap in Old Glossop.
This regular output, combined with my wildlife writing, Glossop Rugby Club, Curragh Son’s shenanigans, a smidge of gooey family stuff and the occasional piece of devilment, has not cost one penny.
You’ll always get a few people, who for reasons only known to themselves, spout rubbish about you, but that’s a risk worth taking, and they soon get shamed anyway, which can of course be another good thing, and make the ‘haters’ as they are known, curb their ardour.
Going public is my thing, for better or worse, heart on sleeve for over 40 years, both on stage and in writing, it is what I do, two million published words and around two thousand gigs, and it’s called sharing that sense of wonder I never lost.
Take this photograph here of a common blue butterfly taken by the remarkably talented Paul Kirkham of Glossop, with the addition of a photo-bombing hoverfly.
‘Just stunning’, was my first comment on Paul’s FB post, and then after revisiting again and again I said, ‘I keep looking at the picture and have to say that, it is right up there with the best’.
The colour is outrageous, the composition whether by accident or design is amazing, but the blue, oh the blue.
An Artist would die to capture that blue just once in their life.
The kid in me, still there at 67, was overawed by the colour of the butterfly, and no drink was taken, it is just beyond beautiful.
Which brings me to one more good thing about FB, and no, I’m not in Zuckerberg’s pay, it allows enthusiasts like Paul, and many more of this friends on the
Glossop Birdwatch page to share their work, and as I said, surely that is what it is all about?
Paul says, in an eloquence that matches his photography: “What drew me to wildlife photography in the first place was wanting to take photos of birds in the tree outside my window.
“That gradually changed to going out for longer and longer walks and wanting to find something different in the world around me.
“I started to look at the natural world, the things I had previously taken for granted in a different way and wanted to capture the images as best I could.
“Wildlife photography for me now is my happy place.
“Particularly over the lockdown period, it has been my sanity and I think that has been the case for so many people. Wildlife imagery can spark reactions in people that other topics can’t.
“There are so many good photographers out there, it is a joy to watch their work and take part in a shared passion.”
Please check out www. pdkimages.picfair.com
Paul asked me if he had been too ‘waffly’ with his quote, but I said not, and I’ll leave the penultimate word to Paul’s mothers, as we all understand that mothers know best.
“My Mum loves the fact that I have gone back to a love of wildlife and birds that I had as a kid, and then lost when far more interesting things appeared in the world.”
Space is against me finding out more!
And final word, and great compliment, from litter-picker extraordinaire, Rachel Summerscales of Mossley after she read our posts on Facebook: “Keep on waffling lads.”
We will indeed.