The Irish Photographic Federation (IPF) run a distinctions program with three levels – licentiate, associate and fellowship.  Over the years I’ve applied for and successfully completed the first two stages and this year applied for my fellowship.  The process involves submitting a panel of images and a statement of intent. The judging, by a distinguished panel of judges happened and I’m delighted to say that I was successful. For more information on the IPFs distinctions process, see this link http://irishphoto.ie/distinctions/ The panel, based on a village in Nepal is: Link toSEE DETAILS

Kathmandu was our first destination this year and  given that we intended to travel last year, we were concerned about how much damage had been done to the city From what we’ve seen, typically, the newer part of the city is relatively intact, however, the older parts of the city have significant damage – in particular, the main Darbar Square has been devastated.

We visited Nepal this year and the highlight of the visit was a side trip  to an Action Aid project in Dharamanger, about 160km south of  Kathmandu. The village is where our sponsored child lives and it was something that we had planned  with Action Aid Ireland well in advance. It was an amazing, humbling experience and we were treated like royalty. This is a collection of images from the village and the journey down.  It was an amazing experience and we met some extraordinary people. I hope to comeSEE DETAILS

My last big photo trip was Sri Lanka and I’m getting ready to go to Nepal at the end of April. For the first time for me, I  wanted to try and publish at least one image a day on Flickr as we traveled.  I have been known to hide images (read – not touch them!) for ages. The difficulty I’ve always had is that I just could not put up with the hassle of bringing a laptop. On the Sri Lanka trip, I was armed with a couple of eyefiSEE DETAILS

This mini-project started about two years ago when I walked into a shop that I used to visit as a child in the early 1970’s. To my amazement, it had not changed one bit in the intervening 40 odd years, including the lady who worked in the shop. I grabbed my camera and took a few images. Anyway, it stated me on a path to find similar shops around the country and the collection is growing – very slowly. This shops are disappearing forever and there are very few left!SEE DETAILS