Tim Van Leeuwen has made an outstanding contribution to BLP's development, both as a keen and capable bird photographer and member since 2014 and more recently in his role as President of the BLP Committee.
Tim served as President from 2020 to 2023, then willingly stepped in again late in 2023 when his successor resigned. Tim's Presidency was marked by an impressive passion and drive to further develop BLP. Among his important achievements was the development of BLP's first vision and mission statement, establishment of interactive video presentations for members on a wide variety of topics related to bird photography and leading the development of a new, modernised website design which was implemented in 2024. Tim also managed BLP's first presence on Facebook and Instagram and he instigated a review and update of the BLP ethics policy. His ability to inspire and encourage his colleagues on the committee and wider membership was one of his major strengths. He showed great skill in leading decisions in a consultative way by seeking and valuing individual views.
Tim played a key role coordinating and liaising with the organising committees for BLP's 2022 and 2024 biennial conference and contributed in no small way to the great success of these events. He was also effective in recruiting new people from the BLP membership to manage the BirdLife Australia Photography Awards and was a volunteer judge in the 2023 competition. The Awards are a major joint initiative between BLP and BirdLife and generate considerable revenue for both BLP and BirdLife's conservation work.
Last but not least, Tim is a passionate and accomplished bird photographer with an ability to both inspire others and further develop his own skills. He has won a number of awards for his photography including commendations in BLP's Advanced level competitions and annual Silver Medals in the Advanced competitions in 2016, 2017 and 2019. Tim was honoured by BLP when he was bestowed with our annual Photographer of the Year Award in 2018 for his contributions to BLP.
Tim was awarded Life Membership in June 2024.
Glenn Pure joined BirdLife Photography (BLP) in April 2013, and became a committee member in 2016. He took on the role of managing the BirdLife Australia Photography Awards in 2018, the inaugural year for this competition, and continued to manage it until 2020. His involvement with the competition continues in a support role. Glenn is also an active moderator on the BLP website and regularly engages with members to assist them to develop their skills. Other contributions to BLP have included a variety of articles on aspects of bird photography and image processing, several instructional videos and two presentations at the BLP Biennial Conference in 2019. Glenn has also assisted new members with critiques of their work and has been a Mystery Reviewer on multiple occasions for BLP internal competitions. He also regularly enters BLP competitions and achieved an annual Bronze award at the Advanced level in 2017 and 2018. International photography achievements include commendations in Bird Photographer of the Year (2017 and 2020) and selection for final judging round in Wildlife Photographer of the Year (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023).
Ian was a member of PhotoBOCA, the predecessor to BirdLife Photography. When Birds Australia and BOCA merged in 2012, he was one of the original members of BirdLife Photography. Ian joined BLP because he wanted to continue learning about bird photography and share the interest with like-minded people. In the ten years since BLP was formed, Ian has submitted about 1200 images to the galleries and supplied over 300 images requested by numerous people for a diverse range of educational and conservation purposes. He has contributed 16 technical articles to the BLP website and been active on the Critique Gallery and the BLP Forum where he is a Platinum Member with over 360 posts. Ian attended BLP conferences at Ingham, Newcastle, Geelong and Fremantle and presented at least 8 talks, some of them plenary lectures. In 2016 and 2017 he was awarded the Advanced Level competition gold medal and in those two years was honoured with the Bird Photographer of the Year award. In more recent times he served as a New Images Moderator, Competition Moderator, and was pleased to provide the Mystery Reviewer comments for some of our competitions. In 2020 and 2021 he was on the judging panel for the BirdLife Australia Photography Awards. Ian has found the most enjoyable thing about being a member of BLP is meeting other bird photographers and sharing experiences and ideas about how to capture better photos.
Graham Cam joined BirdLife Photography in 2012. He became our Photo Competition Coordinator and an image moderator - a role he still performs - in 2014; during this period he introduced different competition levels, and Mystery Reviewers for competitions during this time. Graham joined the committee as Treasurer in 2014, and in April 2015 became President, also continuing as Treasurer until mid-2017. He continued as President until June 2020; his major achievement during this time was changing the style of our biennial get-togethers, from the predominantly workshop-focused Digital Photography in the Bush meetings to the current presentation-style BLP Biennial Conferences, the first of which was the Geelong meeting in 2017, followed by the Fremantle conference in 2019. He has been a Mystery Reviewer for several competitions.
Rob Parker was one of the early members of PhotoBOCA when it was formed in 2009. He joined the BirdLife Photography (BLP) committee in 2010, and continued in that role until 2019. In late 2011 he became editor of the bi-monthly BLP Newsletter, continuing in that role until the final newsletter was published in December 2019. In 2012 he took over from Bob Young as Website Administrator, a role in which he still continues. Together with Dave Torr, he designed the first stand-alone BLP website, which was launched in February 2016. He has been an image moderator since late 2010.