My photography:

It really started as a serious interest in 2006, although I have always taken photos throughout my life and travels around the world.

The problem was that I knew nothing about the art of photography even though I have owned numerous long forgotten point and shoot cameras that had easy to load film cartridges. My photographs were simply records of where I had been and what I had seen with absolutely no thought for composition. And I've got boxes of them!

I did try on several occasions to get to grips with the science behind it, but each time I tried I failed. In the late 1980s I even bought an expensive SLR and a couple of lenses from the Taunton branch of LCE and enrolled on a one day workshop with a professional photographer, determined to learn more about photography. He was a very nice old chap and his wife kept us topped up with tea and sandwiches but he had the unforunate gift of boring us all rigid with technical in-depth descriptions of camera construction over the ages, the mathematics of focal length calculations of lenses and the significance of old photographic masters of their time. I arrived not even knowing how to turn my camera on, and left at the end of the day none the wiser!

After several attempts to make a real effort I became fed up with Boots repeatedly giving me back my films with little notes telling me that my exposures, focus and shutter speeds were all wrong, so I gave up, and gave the camera to my son (who was then, and still is, in the Navy). He traded it in for a new windsurfer!

I have to chuckle when I look at this picture of him in the South Atlantic a few years later as he had become a dab hand with his own Canon outfit:

As the digital age was upon us and I no longer had any sort of camera, I treated myself to a Sony DSC-P92 5 megapixel point and shoot:

It was a cracking little machine and did all that I asked of it on holidays and high days. I have hundreds of snaps (in the form of digital files on my PC) from the US, France and Portugal that I took with it, without any fuss, and without any idea what shutter speeds, focal lengths or anything else was going on. Switch it on, look through the tiny viewfinder, click, perfect.

LOL

It all ended when I decided to give the bedcovers a good straighten during a holiday in Mexico and with a swift flick my unseen little digital camera was blasted off into the fan, richocheted into the wall and landed heavily on the stone floor, dead.

A replacement was sought at the Bedford branch of Jessops and the smooth talking assistant persuaded me to invest in Sony's first digital SLR, the alpha 100. I am a sucker for branding and have always bought Sony electronic goods so as it had a fully automatic idiot setting (marked in green) I bought it. With a kit lens, whatever that was.

And I became absolutley hooked.

I didn't have to wait to see what I had taken and the digital pictures cost me nothing. Within weeks, with renewed enthusiasm, and the wonders of the internet, I started to gather all the information I so wished I had had years ago.

As I had studied for many years with the Open University (computer technology and social science courses) after leaving the army I was the first to enroll on their new course T189, a basic digital photography course that lasted for only 10 weeks.

(Highly recommended for anyone new to digital photography. You can read an article I was invited to write for PhotoWorld magazine about the course in my books and publications page)

The alpha 100 (which as any Minolta/Sony enthusiast knows was a rebadged Konica Minolta 5D) made way for the alpha 700 and I could not resist the last KM produced camera before they sold out to Sony, the excellent 7D.

(I bought and sold several over a couple of years and still have a mint condition copy in my collection, see my kit page)

And now I use the magnificent full frame digital alpha 850 together with some really good lenses in my pursuit of better photographs.

There is a lot missing in this tale, the photography club competitions I have won:

the many excellent workshops I've attended,especially with Going Digital and Chris Weston. But I hope it goes some way to explain where I am with this wonderful interest.

I love photography and my humble photo blog has documented some of the highs and lows since 2006. I have developed this website into what it is today with galleries displaying some of my pictures utilising the JAlbum software that is available, for free, to everyone.

An ironic twist is that now I have a much better understanding of shutter speed and aperture settings, together with ISO and exposure compensations I have ventured back in time to explore film with older cameras that can be picked up for a fraction of their original cost on line.

I have taught myself Adobe Photoshop, with the help of magazine tutorials such as Digital Photo who provide a disc every month with video demonstrations - I have them all from 2006! I have learnt how to create this simple website with Dreamweaver and there is no end to the number of useful, helpful and entertaining website forums, especially Dyxum.com, Photoclubalpha.com and more recently TalkPhotography.co.uk.

In addition my interests have leaned towards wildlife and especially wild bird photography where websites such as Wildaboutbritain.co.uk and Birds - talk photography have been great sources of information and assistance.

So, this is all a work in progress and I welcome you to my site, especially if you have read this far, and I hope you will return as it, and my photography, improves.

Please feel free to comment through the getintouch link.

Thank you

June 2011

 

 

My background:

I was born in a tiny bungalow in a tiny East coast seaside village near Clacton on Sea in the Spring of 1948. Not wishing to remain in a seasonal holiday town I left school at 17 in 1965 and signed up to see the world as a soldier.

I had a wondeful career with the Royal Corps of Transport, serving in far flung places such as Singapore, Aden, Hong Kong, Germany and Cyprus. And for 3 years I served aboard the Royal Navy assault ship HMS Intrepid and travelled around the globe visiting many countries including Australia, South Africa and Japan.

(I wrote a book entitled "As You Were!" after I retired and it is stil available via the books and publications link)

After 23 years regular service I retired in Taunton, Somerset and became a Civil Servant as a driving examiner in the Driving Standards Agency. (For the first 4 years I also served in the TA as well).

This year, 2011, will mark the completion of 22 years with the DSA and I am looking forward to retiring in the not too distant future when I can devote more of my time to playing golf, riding my Triumph Bonneville and taking photographs.

I now live in Rutland with my wife and two Bengal cats.