I have been interested in photography since the mid 80s. My first camera was an Olympus XA3. This camera served me well and I took many good photos with it.
Then in the early 90s I purchased my first SLR, a Pentax. This was a good camera but after using this for a while I felt I needed something a bit more modern. I bought a Canon EOS 100, with 2 lenses and flash unit. I was now hooked and took hundreds of photos with this camera.
Sadly, after a couple of years of taking photos at friends' weddings and general use my interest started to fade and I packed away the camera.
In August 2001, before a holiday to Venice, I decided to get a new modern
compact camera. Persuaded by a friend I bought a digital camera. I knew nothing of digital
photography but had good computer knowledge, so decided it was the way to go. I purchased a
Fujifilm 6800z and was hooked again and this time there was no looking back.
In 2003 I decided it was time to revisit the SLR arena and with the introduction of the Canon 300D, it was the
obvious choice. After a using it constantly for 2 years I started to find the limitations of the 300D when taking the wildlife photos. I was finding the startup time and frames per second where too slow and I kept filling the buffer during continous shooting. I decided it wasn,t worth upgrading at the time to the 10D, so I waited and upgraded to the 20D. This really helped and was alot more inline with my E0S 100 from about 10 years earlier. In 2007 I upgraded again buying the Canon 40D.
If you like the images you see on the website, many are available to buy as gifts. Please visit the Gifts Section to see a selection.
I am a great believer that photography is the art of capturing what you see using the camera and not
editing it, (ie removing an intruding object) afterwards on the PC.
The word 'Photography' is defined as 'the process of making pictures by means of action of light by recording light patterns
on to sensitive material though a timed exposure'. I believe if that photograph is then modified by removing or adding an object, this then becomes graphic design, or photographic art.
I am not saying that the digital editing should not happen, but each has its
place and should be judged separately and not side by side and definitely shouldn't be compared, unless it is clearly stated that it has been modifed.
When I have read some articles in photography magazines on readers photos who sent them in for review, I've thought, thats a nice photo, only to read the magazine experts suggesting that it might have looked better with a few trees removed etc. Why, I thought it looked good and surely that is then digital art?
Like I said, I do not add or remove objects through editing. I will only crop the size or change the brightness/saturation of the image for printing, so it reflects what is seen on the screen. This is the same as when getting a film photo developed.
Occasional you have to move with the times and learn new skills. In 2008/9 I have been trying different types of processing and editing.
I've been taking more RAW images and this has given me a bit more flexibilty with my photography. It has enabled me to try High Key photography (great for portraits) and HDR images, which you will see more regularly being added to my website.
Using HDR has enabled me to better capture the scene I saw with my eyes, which you cant always get in one exposure on the camera. I try to keep it subtle enough so it just looks like an evenly exposured image. Technically this is not then a single photo, but a combination of 3 images using a PC - a photograph, or digital art, not sure, but I still try to keep more to the definition of photography than digital art.