A Beginning

A Beginning

I'll try to post a few times a week, this time to give a little bit of background into how I started out into photography and where my interest has led me. This has informed my choices in the type of kit I use and how I use it

So, in the beginning, my first serious use of photography was as a tool for my research into the structure and properties of polymers, way back in the late '60s. It was forensic in style, having to be completely consistent to allow measurement of changes in micro-structure in the materials and later, looking at failure mechanisms during fracture and shear.

As my career moved on photography moved with it, still as a boring tool but in this case to record problems / failures in large scale installations in which systems I and my team had developed were used and then had to provide technical support to in the field. Once more it was a boring but essential recording job as these photos were used to identify problems and at times to help fight legal battles were things went badly wrong (Pentax K100 was the tool of choice at that time from memory, with a large potato-masher style flash gun - tough as old boots surviving desert sands, Sarawak humidity and fungus etc. As you will see later - this is still a common theme )

In all this time I never used the camera for my pleasure, a great shame in hindsight as I had to travel to some amazing parts of the world and now only have my (fading) memories of incredible animals, people and landscapes.

When I retired 20 odd years ago I decided to take up photography as a hobby (back in the days of the Agfa ePhoto 1280 which was my first digital camera - a whole 0.7mpixels!)

My old habits stuck and I became skilled in producing very detailed (but totally boring) images of "bird on a stick", "bee on a stick", "a stick" until one day I got talking to a friend who was a professional artist (paint brushes, oil paints and stuff) and I wondered if it was possible to introduce an element of art into photography

It was at this time my passion for photography really started


More later