Born in 1955, I have been taking photographs since I was about 10, the classic being a self portrait with Kodak 127 camera held at arms length pointing at yours truly. In the late 1960's I sold my train set to fund my first SLR camera, a second hand Zenith E, with a 50mm Helios lens.
This camera was a miracle to me, and took me though my O'Level Art Course, in which I specialised in photography, doing all my own B&W processing. In later life, I graduated to Canon AE-1, A1 then EOS 600, and until 1985, had a darkroom in the cellar of my parents house, in which colour processing often occurred. I gradually lost interest then, and took up video instead, a fad that lasted until about 3 years ago, when I decided to buy a digital camera.
| I bought a gadget camera, largely because it was the best resolution at a sensible price, so off I went with a Richo RDC and a new love affair began. At 3 meg pixels, the camera was good but not great. It had a lovely little lens, but very little zoom. It didn't have a good viewfinder, and it took ages to start up. |  |
| About 12 months later, I came across the Nikon Coolpix 5700. Almost an SLR and with an 8X zoom. I was about to Devon and hoped to photograph Red Deer, so this seemed ideal. Not one deer was to cross my lens, but the camera was really good, except that the focusing was awfully slow and the viewfinder made it difficult to see what effect filters were having. |  |
For spring 2003, I decided it was time to learn why all my pictures were so dull. I enrolled on a course with Fotocourses in Dorset, and looked forward to 4 days spent with like minded people in a comfortable hotel in Lulworth Cove. Instead, I found only one other person on the course, but the standard of tuition and the places we were taken to made up for the disappointment.
Having enjoyed that experience, I booked into Lakeland Photographic Holidays, based at Braithwaite near Keswick. John and Gail are remarkable people who both gave up high pressure jobs to run this enterprise, and work extremely hard at it. A new world opened up, as I was joined by novices and experts as my fellow guests. The summer weather chose this week to break, and we didn't see the sun and blue sky until the day we left, but this added to the challenge. I had a great time, made some new friends, and learnt some more about this art. I needed graduated filters, but the Coolpix wasn't designed to take filters. However I found a company in the USA that made a clip in adapter, so I was able to attach Cokin Filters, albeit rather precariously. The lot came off when I gave it a knock. However, the LCD viewing screen was not up to a true SLR, and I had difficulty deciding where the grads were finishing.
| A year after buying the Coolpix, it was replaced by the Canon 300D, and my old EOS 600 lenses came out of the cupboard, still working fine after about 20 years. |  |
When one of my new friends told me about going to a photo club, I decided to give this a try. I joined Leigh Camera Club, and soon I was entering into the print competitions with all the vigour of a fanatic. So it was that in December, 2003 I came first in the beginners section for my colour prints, mostly taken in the Lake District or Dorset.