I have lived long enough now to have seen a transformation in the art of photography. Not that I’d call myself a photographer, but I been taking photographs since I was a child and I’ve always been entranced by the possibilities of even the simplest of cameras. As a schoolboy, I won a photographic competition once but that was a long time ago. Since then, I’ve just been using my various cameras for my own pleasure, mostly as a record of my family and friends but when that amazing digital revolution got to me, in 2007,  I found new excitement with a great digital camera, the Cannon EOS 400D, bought in Hong Kong and loved ever since.  Since living in Lewes, UK, I’ve been friends with a real photographer, David Stacey http://www.davidstaceyphoto.com/ who has not only inspired me with his own work but encouraged me to experiment more with my own camera.

Dave even turned his camera on me a few times and this portrait  now hangs on a wall at home – like it or not, I think it captures the spirit of my life here in Lewes.

I spent a day with Dave recently when we went to an exhibition as the excellent Pallant House Gallery in Chichester and, over a boys’ pub lunch, we discussed cameras and photography as we often do. It was there that Dave inspired me to give Instagram a go. He said he thought I’d really like this the most  creatively challenging and excitingly instant of all of today’s social networking sites. I said I’d have a go and, a month later, I’m still doing it and, yes, loving it too. I’ve been taking at least one photograph a day for the site and I’m gradually learning how to master the various editing options. You can see how I’ve been getting on by following the link below.

The other revolution in my on-line world is that those photographs taken for Instagram can be linked to various other sites – so I’m now an enthusiastic member of the photography site Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/16199705@N05/

I’m enjoying the way my photographs can be sent round the internet with just a couple of clicks and love the way my Instagram photos are also automatically linked to  that other photography site Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/colinbell/photographs-by-colin-bell-wolfiewolfgang/

Needless to say, these pictures also go directly to my Facebook and Twitter pages so after a relative silence here on my website, I’m suddenly all over the wonderful world-wide web and having lots of fun all of which I owe to my good friend David Stacey. Thanks Dave.

I haven’t posted many blogs on here this year. Forgive me, regular readers, I’ve been busy finishing a novel for publication later this year  and now I’m getting on with a new one so I’ve been heads down all year but plan to get back to blogging again very soon.

In the meanwhile you can follow me on all of the above sites as well as on Facebook and Twitter – I hope to see you around in cyberspace and, of course, here on this site.

The post Photography – at first it was just taking pictures, then I went digital and now I discover Instagram. appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

I love Twitter the social networking site that encourages the concise use of language and, yes, freedom of expression. For all those moaning voices that lament the modern age of the Worldwide Web, I say lets celebrate the technology that has made individual voices heard in a World that too often drowns out the little person.

Germany has remained relentless in its intolerance to any attempt by the far Right to reestablish itself and we all owe them a debt of gratitude for their vigilance.

Parisians watching the german army arriving in Paris during the Second World War.

The trouble is that while we mostly agree with the values of German law, what about those law breakers in Tiananmen Square? China is decidedly unenthusiastic about Twitter and secretly pleased it didn’t exist when that brave young man stood in front of the tanks.

What about the victims of ethnic cleaning in Bosnia? The World was a long time coming to their rescue – well to the rescue of those who survived. Twitter and its like would not have been popular with the oppressors.

Would we have heard anything about Russia’s Pussy Riot? President Putin has good reason to despise Twitter.

and, without Twitter and the other social networking sites, would there have been the Arab Spring?

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