A bit About me - if you're interested!
My Passion for Photography
My interest in photography started way back in the early 60’s when my Father bought an Ilford Sportsman camera, which promptly jammed on our family holiday to Venice. I fixed it and from then on he left taking the holiday snaps to me and the rest is history.
After trying to take decent photos with all sorts of film cameras from 110 format to Polaroid – with limited success, I bought my first “proper” SLR camera (Pentax ME Super) in the early 80’s. The driving force was to document the birth and development of my daughter and I ended up giving my first photography lesson to the gynaecologist as my wife endured a lengthy labour. I’ll never forget the loving words my dear wife said to us – “If you don’t put that bl**dy camera down NOW I’m going to shove it where the sun don’t shine!
In the 70’s and 80’s (well before the digital era) everything was on film and if you wanted to control your ISO or film speed, you had to change your film!
Sometimes when you purchased a film it also came with developing and printing included but others required taking the exposed film to one of the printing shop that sprang up on all the high streets – you may recall seeing these big machines in the window spewing out everybody’s holiday snaps – usually with an exposure warning sticker.
Films usually came in 12 or 24 exposures and of course you couldn’t see the results until they were printed. This led to greater precision and care when taking the shot or you were left with regret and disappointment when you viewed the results – sometimes weeks later. This apprenticeship taught me to be careful in choosing and framing my shots and it now saves me hours in post production.
Armed with my new Pentax SLR – I decided I should learn how to use it properly!
Fortunately a teacher and keen photographer friend, asked me to join his camera club that he had set up at his nearby school. There was a mixture of beginners, amateurs and professionals with a variety of equipment and we spent our time on practical exercises ranging from portrait, studio lighting, macro, landscape, etc. We even had a fully equipped darkroom were we learnt to develop, process and print our pictures from our roll of film.
Eventually it was suggested that we work to a syllabus to ensure we covered every topic – so at the age of 30 we embarked on the G.C.E. photography course which consisted of course work, a history of photography dissertation and a 3 hour written exam – we earnt our qualifications in those days!
Check out my Wed Design website – https://www.4alldesigns.com
