Hi ,

Welcome to this first edition of my monthly newsletter. And a big hello to anyone who's recently joined up 👋

It's been a busy old month, getting stuck into planning and writing my Tiny Egypt talk for the EES's online lecture series.

It's happening this Tuesday, 2nd November at 1pm UK time (GMT), so you still have a couple of days to sign up if you haven't already. It's free to register, so I'd love to see you there if you're able:

• Tiny Egypt talk registration page

In this month's newsletter:

• Update: announcing The Tiny Egypt Society
• Photo of the month: a Corinthian helmet with a dodgy nose
• A dose of inspiration: advice from Neil Gaiman to arts graduates
• Wise words: three important words from Neil Gaiman

Announcing The Tiny Egypt Society

I'm very excited to launch The Tiny Egypt Society, a new way in which you can support Tiny Egypt.

As an independent photographer, I’m working on Tiny Egypt entirely on my own and it’s not easy. Rather than spend lots of time trying to write bids for funding and having to tailor my project to what I think the funding bodies want to see me do, I'd prefer to spend that time making more photographs, sharing them with you, and getting your opinion on how the project's shaping up.

So, from just £1.00 a month, you can join The Tiny Egypt Society and become a patron of Tiny Egypt with your monthly contribution. There are no complicated Patreon-style tier rewards, because I understand that £1.00 can be as much of an outlay to some as £50.00 might be to others. So, just choose the amount you feel comfortable pledging; minimum £1.00 per month, maximum £50.00.

You will be one of the first people to see new photos of artefacts I’m working with, get behind-the-scenes updates, and get inside access to everything else that goes into keeping the project running.

As a member of The Tiny Egypt Society, your name will appear in Retrograde, my annual publication, as someone who helped make this work possible. Members who pledge at least £10 a month will be sent a complimentary copy of Retrograde.

Initially, I'll be sending out communications via email, but if the idea proves popular, I'll look to set up a community group for members.

Monthly contributions can be cancelled, paused, increased or decreased at any time, no questions asked.

• It's already awesome that you're supporting me by being here, reading this email. But, if you'd like to join The Tiny Egypt Society, or would like to see the other ways in which you can support Tiny Egypt (some of which don't involve any money at all), you can do so over on my website

(In case you're wondering why I haven't chosen to use a platform like Patreon, the reason is simple: the fees for using them are astronomical. Running the Society from my website means - barring the small bank processing fees I have to pay to take payments, which I would still have to pay when using a third-party platform like Patreon - everything you pledge comes to me to support the project.)

Photo of the month

This month's photo is of a Corinthian helmet I photographed for Manchester Museum's Golden Mummies of Egypt exhibition.

It may not look it, but this was actually quite scary to photograph (yes, I'm making a tenuous Halloween link here ...). If you look carefully, you can see a crack along the nose cover, about a third of the way down. This crack means the nose cover is hanging on by a thread.

The helmet was under the care of the museum's conservation team, and they'd attached a protective perspex clamp to hold the nose cover together, which I wanted to remove before photographing the helmet. Now, I'm not usually phased by handling artefacts, but this was one of those occasions when we all decided it would be better if I took a more hands-off approach. One wrong move, and that nose cover was going to go flying!

So, the conservator came down, removed the clamp and set the helmet on the table I was working on. The only contact I had was to twizzle the helmet and its stand just a little to get it straight on to the camera.

This helmet is number 3 in a blog post I wrote about scary artefacts I've photographed:

• My 5 scariest artefact photography sessions (so far)

A dose of inspiration

This month's dose of inspiration comes from Neil Gaiman, a British author famous for writing books such as American Gods, Coraline, the Sandman graphic novels and co-authoring Good Omens with the late great Terry Pratchett.

In 2012, he gave the commencement speech to graduates at The University of Arts, Philadelphia.

It's a wonderful, witty, humble and inspiring speech in which he talks not only about how he got where he is today, but about the importance of trying, of experimenting, of accepting failure, and of finding your own pathway.

On those days when I wonder what the hell I'm doing with my life (!), watching it again is a sure way to get me back on track.

One of my favourite lines is his advice for dealing with imposter syndrome, which is to just pretend to be someone who can do good things:

"So be wise, because the world needs more wisdom, and if you cannot be wise, pretend to be someone who is wise, and then just behave like they would.

I urge you to grab a cuppa and spend 20 minutes watching this speech. I'm sure you'll find something you love about it.

• Watch the video on YouTube

If any particular part of his speech hit a chord with you, please do click on that reply button and let me know.

(If you don't want to watch the video, you can read the transcript here.)

Wise words

Staying with the Neil Gaiman commencement speech, this month's quote is the final line in his speech: Make good art.

Me, I'm trying, and as each year passes, I feel I'm improving. And it's my mantra for moving forward with Tiny Egypt. Because that's what my photography is: it's not archival imaging; it's not collections database photography; it's an exploration, a meditation, and an artistic endeavour.

I hope you'll agree.

Until next month,

Julia