A “serious” amateur photographer since the age of 18, I got into photography because my ability to reproduce what I saw by drawing or painting was never quite to the standard I wanted it to be!
Starting out with a second hand manual focus Olympus OM-20 35mm SLR camera, I moved progressively from colour print to black & white print and colour slide film. Back in my university days, I enjoyed relaxing evenings in the dark room, either alone or training others to develop their own black & white films and produce prints. Although the quality of what can be produced nowadays with digital is much better and learning is much faster, part of me misses the hard work and the more practical skills needed to develop and print film.
This is most clearly felt when using a medium format system, such as one of the two Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) cameras I acquired during my university days; a Halina AI, from a local shop and a Rolleicord IV from ebay. With only 12 shots, no light meter, crude focusing systems, it forces you to think about everything you do in a way that the modern “take-and-if-you-don’t-like-delete-and-retake” digital attitude does not.
In 2002, I moved to the Canon EOS autofocus system, with the EOS5 and many of the photographs that can be seen on this site (dated up until autumn 2006) were taken with that camera. Upon leaving university and starting full time employment, my budget permitted me to go digital with the EOS350D which served me well until the spring of 2011 when I upgraded to the EOS7D. Although still an APS-C size sensor, the 7D produces larger, more detailed images and coupled with better quality lenses, excellent clarity. Since then, I have started to move towards the Olympus OM-D Micro Four Thirds mirrorless system.
One of my favourite types of photography is at night, but travelling with a tripod isn’t always the easiest. Some of the night shots featured here have been taken with the camera perched on bridges, telephone exchange boxes or even hand held at very high ISO, but of course normally I do use a tripod. In recent years, I have become interested in more inventive post-processing of images, particularly with respect to the dynamic range. Whilst the the fashion a few years ago was to produce highly surreal HDR images with intense saturation, if used in moderation it can bring images to life. I am obviously still on my quest to reproduce the world as I saw it through my own eyes, much as I wanted to do in my childhood.