Hello matey! Sorry I haven't been around of late, real life rather gobbled me up in 2008, work wise. Good to see so many of the old faces of more or less grown up with online are still about. I can't promise this is my grand return, because i'll wake up tomorrow and nothing will have changed in so far as how I juggle time. As you may have realized work got suddenly very busy. I basically got put in charge of an image data base at the Zoological Society of London and tasked to build it from scratch, in part from working at a paparazzi company called Bigpictures some of you may remember I worked for briefly, where I used some software called Fotostation which you basically use to attach meta data to images, making them easy to find. (Bigpictures literally had millions of images). Cool thought I, then the immensity of the task set in; there were at least 500,000 .jpg's alone on the servers when I started in 2007, not to mention 30,000 b\w historical pictures, and at least eight filing cabinets of slides. Due to this wonderful digital age, the photos being added to the servers on a weekly basis is huge; not just from London Zoo and Whipsnade safari park, but our scientists uploading stuff from their conservation projects around the world. It's also utterly fascinating if you appreciate animals and wildlife, and hence highly addictive hunting for newly uploaded stuff on the servers, especially when you have been given privileged access everywhere. If things couldn't get worse to my excuses not being here, I inherited a minor fortune; not enough to fly us all off to a mid pacific tropical island for a swrebellion member meet , but more than enough to not worry about the house anymore, or my pension to be honest given i've been able to invest a six figure sum in the stock markets via a highly respected firm of investors, and go shopping on my passion for photography; I worked out I spent almost £10,000 on gear in 2008, here's why: http://s4.b3ta.com/host/creative/9805/1233589195/MeandRoxy.jpg A few moments later I took this: http://s2.b3ta.com/host/creative/9805/1235507919/rockhoppers.jpg which got in the The Times Quite a buzz.. I also have access inside the various animal enclosures, which is a photographers dream; and you'll have to bear with me as i've forgotten how to thumbnail using this site's coding; though they aren't that large: http://s1.b3ta.com/host/creative/9805/1235254138/Rickythelemur.jpg A Lemur called Ricky http://www2.b3ta.com/host/creative/9805/1229465389/IMG1797.jpg A big fluffy overgrown kitten who likes to snarl lots http://www2.b3ta.com/host/creative/9805/1231006977/IMG1622.jpg A model with a snow leopard cub at the Cat Survival Trust in Hertfordshire http://www2.b3ta.com/host/creative/9805/1231095094/IMG1050.jpg Me, taken by the model; hence out of focus http://s1.b3ta.com/host/creative/9805/1235173056/AdrianCrackers.jpg and a wildlife film maker I was asked to photograph in our giraffe house So you can see the distractions! Anyway, I hope you guys are all ok, my first internet community this, so I don't think i'll ever be gone to be honest; just my job preventing more interaction, not that that's something I resent as you may have gathered from the above. I'm still on the same email if you want to drop me a line, and will try and pass by tomorrow, assuming nothing dramatic happens; which generally does at a zoo unfortunately! May the Force be with you, always