Update on Ben Hill links

Life gets spread around on the Internet, here are some of the updated places you are likely to find me.

Facebook
FlickR
Net-Model
Pure Storm
TFP Models
MySpace
LinkedIn

Update on Maja Dzartovska-Hill links

Maja has a lot of stuff on the web, most of it fairly boring stuff. Finding her can be a little confusing as she has no had 3 different surnames! Dzartovska, Dzartovska-Hill and Hill. This is just a list of some of the more relevant stuff:

Maja's Web Site
Maja's Blog
Maja's Teaching (distance learning)
Maja at the National Gallery
Maja's Wikipedia entry

Totton College

This year sees me teaching at Totton College (again) on the adult education side. I always love the people, I always hate the unsocial hours! This year it's on a Monday night, which is a bit of a pain as that then overlaps withthe Southampton Camera Club and this year I am only covering the AS level not the GCSE as well, which is a pity. Next year they get to have an exhibition in Hanger Farm again so I'm really looking forward to that, I wish them all luck.

Summer Group Exhibitions

I've had a busy summer in 2008, Maja has had a major solo exhibition in Skopje at the cities cultural centre, one of the biggest spaces in the city. It's quite scary to see pictures that elsewhere fill a whole wall disappear into that vast space. After that she just had endless interviews, TV, radio, magazines etc, all very exciting as it always is.

Then we were both off to an art residency, once again we were lucky enough to get a joint place while my mother-in-law 'volunteered' to baby sit for the 10 days.

10 days in sunny (very sunny) Ohrid at the Ramazzoti Art Colony, a truly breathtaking location next to a huge UNESCO protected lake surrounded by limestone mountains. Where of course I was desperately trying to avoid taking all the normal range of tourist shots and achieve something a little more original. Of course I did take lots of sunsets and views over the lake, but I like to think I found a little out of the ordinary stuff as well.

The whole trip ended up with a lot of good luck. We held the normal group exhibition to display the work we had done, but then found out that the very same Cultural Centre in Skopje had had a very last minute cancellation and would be prepared to hold a joint exhibition of the residencies work! So back there again for Maja (different paintings this time) and my first time exhibiting in that space!

Ivan gets his modelling dream break

I'm happy when it all comes together Ivan is a young model I met through one of my usual routes net-model and we did a series of location shoots for his portfolio. Now on the back of that he has landed a place with the top agency in his city!

Skopje Zoo 2008

Back to the lovely Skopje Zoo, lots of changes, sadly not all good for me. Improved fencing is helping to keep the beavers out of their favourite lake with all the wild beaver having been rounded up. The new enclosure building programme is moving on with lots of new pens springin g up, which means close access to animals is just going to get harder as well as preventing them from going on their daily walks. There are still I'm happy to say lots of various herbivores escaping for short strolls around the zoos paths, long may it continue. The baby wolf is now too large to fit through the cage bars so he/she is now confined along with the adults.

The highlight of my all too brief visit, I asked if I might 'jump into' the beaver enclosure to take some better shots. In true 'can do Macedonian style' they said why not and in I jumped. Looking a bit closer at those teeth I'm not sure who was the more nervous out of us.

Macedonian Diaspora Football

There has been a running competition of a team of Macedonian footballers taking on various other European amateur teams. Held mostly in London the matches are fiercely fought by players who travel quite some distances to make it. The series ends in a competition to be played in Ohrid, Macedonia in the summer. While not the official photographer (they don't have one), it has given me an opportunity to practise my sports photography.