I am an amateur photographer based in the West of Scotland and live with Lynn in Stirlingshire.
I started photography when I was twelve years old when I learned developing and printing black and white in my first years at high school. During my university years and early part of my professional career in IT, I retained a healthy interest in photography, but it has only been in the last eighteen years, that I have been taking photography much more seriously and taken the step to a keen amateur and even some freelancing.
As I learned more about photography and the art of taking pictures, I realised quickly that my heart lay in landscape, nature and wildlife with a passion for black & white. The desire to capture the beauty of nature drives me to pick up my camera.
Travel is another fascination of mine, and in the various different places I visit, I always aim to capture the feel and spirit of the place as well as the people who inhabit them. When showing my best photos from a visit to Upper Egypt to some friends, they were astounded by the absence of pyramids and tombs, and by the way I had captured the soul of the place with images of the people and natural beauty of the country.
To me photography is an endless journey, with so much to learn and so many places around the world to visit.
The photographs
In my view, one of the defining statements in modern photography is that “you cannot really appreciate your photography until you actually print your photos”. Even in this digital age, nothing beats the sheer beauty of a large framed print on display on a wall.
Sharing my printed and mounted photos with friends and colleagues at work to get their views on potentials submission to camera club competitions actually resulted in my first sale, a colour enlargement of the moon shining across the Firth of Clyde.
Not only did this photograph win the “night scene” competition at the camera club, but astoundingly, I sold a framed print to someone unknown who was colour blind but absolutely loved this predominantly blue tinted photo after seeing a print lying on my desk at work.
Equipment
My main cameras are a Fuji X100v and X-Pro2 with fast prime lenses and versatile zoom lenses with image stabilisation ranging from 10mm to 400mm.
In addition to my main kit, I also use a variety of film cameras covering 35mm (like my Nikon F and FM SLR’s with various Nikkor AIS lenses), medium format (like my 6x6cm Rolleiflex TLR) and occasionally large format (like the 4×5″ Sanderson in the picture that I recently sold).
