18th July 2025

If you were wondering what happened to me, my account was suspended . Navigating the increasingly puritan rules that appear to be being implemented in the US led me to breach the 'safe' regulation.

27th April 2025

The rise of the use of AI.

As I explained below, when I started on Flickr I used Faceapp, which was one of the earliest AI image manipulation apps for the public, to enhance my pic, but then realised it wasn't honest and removed all those images.

I am now seeing more use of AI, which, for me, means the pics are no longer photos but illustrations, and don't now show an honest representation of the subject. As someone who is already combating nature and age, I don't need to be made to feel even more inadequate by fake images. So, I have taken the decision to unfollow or not follow any person who I see using AI without being honest about its use.

Not a big deal, and probably most people won't care, but it seems to me if we are making all this effort to present ourselves I don't see the point of then cheating as you are only in the end lying to yourself.

22nd September 2024

I have been fortunate with lots of lovely people leaving very kind comments. I appreciate and value all of them. I apologise that I don't acknowledge all these individually. If anyone wants a response or wants to chat please use the email address on this page as I endeavour to reply to any message sent this way 💋💋

17th April 2024

So it's been nearly four years since I revisited my description, and this only after getting a comment from a kind individual.

I guess having reread it most things still hold true with the one exception which is where I say my pics are manipulated with apps. I ceased using apps and manipulation a good time ago, and all the pics that were manipulated have all been removed. All the pics of me are me with no manipulation other than colour and exposure adjustment and a tiny bit of soft focus to hide some of my wrinkles. All things I would have done for a portrait when I was a pro photographer.

I hope you enjoy my images.

Pam xx

24th June 2020

Once again thank you to everyone who has left a comment. I'm sorry I don't have time to respond individually to each one separately.

I do enjoy and value the comments people leave.

Pam xx

2nd March 2020.

Lately, I've been remiss in thanking people for their kind comments. I do appreciate people taking the trouble to leave a comment and thank all of you.

Pam xx

Unbelievably another scammer has just contacted me! (So as not to confuse later 'just' is 9th January)

How do you know a scammer, apart from the bad English and writing entire emails in caps.

They always have dead wives, this one also had a dead mother, they always have a successful business, they just want to friends and tell you to take a chance and they always talk about God like an evangelist.

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OK, so at the end of November someone on Flickr tried to 'Romance scam' me. They contacted me through Flickr mail and, as I always try to think the best of people, I listened to his sob story. He then bombarded me with emails and tried to get me to talk to him through Google Hangout. Pretty early things felt wrong, particularly he became more illiterate, and as he claimed to be American, his English was poor. Early emails were clearly written by someone more literate.

Finally I pointed out the time he said it was did not fit with being in America. At this point he said he was a CIA agent in Syria, a laughable and apparently common scam story.

I closed him down at this point and reported all this to Flickr. All Flickr did was to tell me how to block him. His site is still up and he's following over 250 women. This has left a bad taste in the mouth for me and is wholly unacceptable that Flickr doesn't seem to want address this issue. So it's time for me to stop posting to Flickr or responding to any further communication beyond the people who have become friends in the last few months.

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More years ago than I care to remember I completed a degree in photography and graphic design.

I subsequently I earned my living for a good few years with a camera, both still and video. I was always happier behind the camera, with my unruly hair and looks I always thought better for radio, I was never happy with photos of myself and generally avoided mirrors, pretty much living in jeans and tee shirts. The selfie was not something I understood or was interested in.

A few years ago I gave up photography, taking up various crafts including weaving, paper making, sewing and making crafting tools. At this point I didn't even own a camera, feeling that the proliferation of phone cameras had killed photography as an art.

A few months ago, when my ancient phone died, I finally joined the 21st century and bought a new phone with selfie feature! Having spotted various apps for improving your selfie, such as adding makeup, something I'd never used, I wondered if I could finally take a picture of myself I would be happy to look at.

I was hooked after a couple of days, not because any of the pictures were me in a better light, but rather, through the manipulation of various apps, the pictures were of a range of characters. All of them both me and not me.

I don't know if these images will be interest to others, but, to me, with the ease I was able to manipulate images, they raise interesting questions in line with many current issues, such as, gender, identity, age, exploitation, fake news and, ultimately, reality.

Addendum

So here I am two days after posting my first pictures. Yesterday I posted some more generic pictures, although still taken in the spirit of the selfie, and today I posted a few more and I find my enthusiasm for photography has started to return. I will continue my exploration of the selfie, but also start to post more varied images that I hope others will find interesting.