My Background
MY BACKGROUND
My Interest in photography started when i was around 12years old with a Fujica STX1N and a std 50mm lens. Even then the main subject matter was trains, but mainly modern traction around the Rugby to Birmingham area (I’m sad to say Ive lost the negatives to most these over the years). That camera stayed with me till the late 90’s until i bought an Olympus OM2n and various lens & flash guns. It was then that my interest in photography changed forever, i started taking it seriously and photographing wildlife, just locally at first then wandering further afield to get the hard to find species, this lead to a wonderful week in the Spanish Pyrenees in 1999 to capture images of once common British butterflies & Orchids now sadly extinct or limited to small pockets of managed reserves.
As my library became swollen with good quality images i became encouraged by my uncle (who is a wonderful wildlife photographer) to start entering some of them into British photographic salons. My first acceptance was in 1998 at the Solihull club’s ”British Photographic Salon”, that photo was of a wading bird called a Redshank taken in Norfolk. From that moment on i became hooked on entering salons, and started entering as many as i could across all continents. This continued till around 2003 and in that time I’d accumulated over 120 acceptances around the world & over 50 in the British circuits. Amongst these acceptance’s medals and highly commended ribbons & certificates started appearing. It was these Acceptance’s which gave me the initials you see on the front page. BPE stands for British Photographic Exhibitor & PSA is Photographic society of America, the stars are based on the number of acceptance’s you get. The greater the number the higher the star. In November 2009 i joined my local Camera club in Lutterworth and through the P.A.G.B i applied for my AFIAP, i hope to have good news to share with you in March when i get my results!
In 1999 my life changed dramatically i met a wonderful lady who was to become my wife in 2002. By 2003 we had bought a house together, got married & had the first of our 2 children. As you can imagine my priorities changed a little and my camera kit became mothballed, this stayed the case apart from the odd day out.
This was also the time i started archiving my old 35mm slides, and i discovered that amongst the nature there was also a strong theme of steam train pictures, nothing special just snap shots from when i helped restore Carrog Station on the Llangollen railway and the odd visit to the Severn valley railway.
The fascination of steam was there from a young child and this fascination resulted in me helping to restore Ex Great Western large pararie tank 5199. I love everything to do with the Great Western Railway its a echo’s everything i love about that period in our Countries history, everything was designed to function but time was taken to make it look easy to the eye, there was attention to detail which is all but gone in today’s trains. Today all we see is cheap & nasty products designed by a computer and made in China from nasty plastic & monkey metal. We’ve become a nation of buyers we make hardly anything to be proud of anymore….I find this very sad
I often wish i could take my camera on a day trip back to the early 1960’s and perch myself on Birmingham Snow Hill for the morning then travel down to Rugby Midland for the afternoon……..
Around 2005 i decided to dust down the kit and set aside some time to shooting again. This time though i decided my main subject was going to be the railways. And so i began, my first pictures were ok but nothing brilliant, i wanted to be closer to the track so a lineside pass on the Great Central railway was purchased. Whilst the quality improved still i wasn’t happy with the final picture. At this time the once laughable digital SLR’s were becoming serious competition to the 35mm film SLR’s . I decided it was time to make the change and start taking pictures with the creation from the devil…….! I stayed with Nikon brand and bought a D80 and if you want my honest opinion (for what its worth) i have never looked back! I was finally getting the images i desired, but of course anyone who has a digi SLR will know you need a Computer to view & manipulate ( sorry i mean dodge & burn to anyone who remembers darkrooms….). So i started to learn how to use the modern day darkroom - Photoshop.
Nearly all the pictures you will see on this site will have ”photoshop twicks” to some degree. Im not into changing colours or replacing backgrounds etc, i just correct the white balance and improve levels & channels etc to bring back the image to how i saw it…
So what else have i bought since the D80? Well ive bought another Digi SLR body a D300 to be precise, along with some the best glass you can get your mits on! And have i noticed any difference…? Hell yes as with cars you only get what you pay for. If you buy a Ford dont expect a Merc or BMW.
My collection now contains sufficient quality & quantity to justify this website & now is the right time to start showing you.
long may that continue.