I'm a lifelong naturalist / 'nature lover', and regard myself as that first and foremost, and not as a photographer, any more than I would regard or identify myself as a 'screwdriverist', although I happily use a screwdriver to the best of my ability when that is the necessary tool! :-)

-- So, to me photography is NOT an interest in itself, but is simply a means to the end of sharing something of the beauty and inspiration that 'Mother Nature' offers us. I don't enjoy much the photography of many who regard themselves primarily as photographers, because even when they photograph nature and scenery subjects, which would be my main interest, I find that much of the time their fixation on getting a supposedly 'perfect' composition gets in the way for me, the self-consciously 'posed' character of their photos drawing attention to the photographer rather than allowing the photo subjects to seem genuinely natural and 'alive'.

My overall remit, then, is photographing nature and wild scenery subjects, taking in meteorological and geological interest as I find it out in the wilds. I frequently (weather permitting) go out on strenuous hikes, not only photographing things of particular interest or beauty, but also recording natural soundscapes, which are presented in my CD store (www.philipgoddard.com/shop/store-2.htm). In recent years a quite high proportion of my photography has been of recording setups and surroundings, from which I take images for use in artwork for CDs of the recordings.

My apologies to all who had added photos of mine to their favourites or galleries, etc. prior to mid-January 2018 and then found that all those connections had disappeared. The sordid truth is that, in the light of a seemingly intractable issue I was getting with attempted uploads of my previous two years' worth of photos, plus widely expressed doubts about the long-term future of Flickr, I let myself get 'pixie-led' into putting my stuff on 500px and closing my Flickr account. I then found that 500px was not only considerably inferior to Flickr for my purposes in its configurability for how I display the photos, but it couldn't handle properly such a large photo collection anyway.

So, 500px is probably best not used for collections over 1,000 photos. I then closed my 500px account, getting a full refund of my subscription fee, and then, finding that there was no really worthwhile alternative to Flickr for my purposes, I opened a new Flickr account, having previously been informed that if I wanted to return I'd have to use a new account with different email and user name. I then discovered that my old account was still present (though empty as I'd deleted all its photos before closing it), but by then it was too late as I'd already got uploading stuff here, so didn't want to undo any of my work here.

At least that experience has given me a considerably greater appreciation of and respect for Flickr. Compared with other options out there, widely listed as 'Flickr alternatives', Flickr really stands out from the crowds and shows that those other photo sharing or hosting sites are viable alternatives only for some people with particular interests or specialities. In my return to Flickr and re-uploading my whole collection I've discovered Flickr features and functionality that I'd been unaware of before — so, despite its odd annoyances and inconveniences, for me personally it is by far the best and most intuitive / ergonomic public showcase of my work.

It would take a lot to make me want to move again. Incidentally, this time I didn't get major issues with the uploading — though as a sensible precaution now I made it policy to upload in batches of no more than 200 at a time, so on the odd occasion where there is an uploading glitch, I could simply dump that upload and re-upload, and not start allocating to albums until I see that a batch is fully and correctly uploaded.