I am an amateur photographer living in Liverpool.  My interest in photography started at school, where we had a Photographic Club run by one of the physics teachers, but I have taken it much more seriously since I retired, chiefly landscape and wildlife, first transparencies and now digital.

For the transparencies I was using Minolta cameras, so chose Sony when I switched to digital in order to use my old lenses, but soon bought new ones anyway.  Over the the next ten years or so I used a succession of Sony cameras, and also, very briefly, a Canon EOS 400D, but, for several years now I have been using the Fujifilm XT series. 

I keep my kit simple: two bodies and two lenses, a Fujinon 16-80 mm which is normally on my X-T2 for landscape work, and a 100-400 mm which is now on an X-T5 which I bought in June 2023 to replace the X-T3 which I had been using mainly for wildlife images. 

Some of my older images were shot as JPEGs but the vast majority of those on the site were shot in RAW.  I processed my earlier images in Lightroom but have been using Capture One since mid-2019.

My photography is essentially a hobby for my own enjoyment, though some of my pictures have been published in magazines (mostly specialist) and one in the national press.  A few were used in displays at St Mary's Church, Marlborough, when we were living there between 2001 and 2013, and I held a small exhibition in Liverpool in 2017 at which some of my prints were sold in aid of a charity in Brazil.  More recently I have joined a local camera club and some of my prints have been included in their exhibitions. I also make my own greetings cards, and a calendar each year for family and friends. 

The images I have chosen for the site are obviously ones with which I feel some measure of satisfaction, though, like most photographers, I am always striving for something better.  There is always a subjective element in the judgement we make of our pictures, linked to the experiences and feelings we had when taking them.  But I still try to rate them against three criteria: impact, information and uniqueness. 

• Impact: How well does the image claim and hold the viewer's attention?  Does it have the potential to evoke an emotional response, whether a sense of awe or feelings wonder or serenity; or have an aesthetic appeal through its shapes, colours and tones? 
• Information:  What does it tell the viewer?  Does it represent a place or an animal in an interesting way, perhaps revealing details, patterns or behaviour which might easily go unnoticed?  Does it arouse curiosity or suggest a story? 
• Uniqueness: Does it capture a moment in time that may never be repeated, or use a viewpoint or lighting which shows the subject in an unusual way?

Although few, if any, images fully satisfy all these criteria it is my aim and belief that all the images on my site meet some of them.  I hope you will enjoy viewing them.  Should you wish to contact me about them my email address is [email protected]. 

Ian McColl.                                                                                                                     October 2025.