I remember as a little boy looking through my great grandmothers photo albums for hours, staring into the images and getting lost in that moment in time. I would imagine what it was like to be there at that time and how I would have fit into that picture. I would always ask my Nanna, "but who took the photo". Most of the time it was Grandad. My Nanna has long passed and I still remember her photos
as if I had only just looked at them. My dad owned a new and used shop in the early eighty's and I remember one day a full camera kit came in with all sorts of lenses, filters and flashes. I asked him if I could use it for a while. I became a pain in the ass, always sticking a camera in someones face. I took it everywhere. I remember taking my first roll of film to get developed. I could not sleep with excitement waiting to see what Ii had taken. I thought about my Nanna's photos and how mine would look the same because I had captured a moment in time and history. I was very disappointed when I got the 6 x 4 prints from the local lab. The photos were ordinary, some blurry and dull. After that moment it just made me more determined to do better with the next film. I went out and bought magazines and even went to a library to get books, which was unheard of for me to go to a library!. I wanted to know it all. I had never put so much effort into learning, if only I had done the same at school! I wanted to master photography. I told my dad I wanted to be a photographer. He told me that one of his friends was a photographer and was always broke, and I should consider a different career path. This was a little discouraging for me at the time because I looked up to my dad so much. I still took photos for the fun of it for years but never gave it the same amount of enthusiasm until later in life when I began to travel. The passion for photography had come back into my life. Soon after this happened the invent of digital photography was just becoming available. This ignited my interest into what was now becoming possible with photography.As we all know, it did'nt take too long for digital photography to take over the world. I went nuts on digital like most people and wanted to learn it all. Magazines, books, dvds tutorials, master classes, sleepless nights on the computer learning it all. I literally shot thousands and thousands of images and spent countless hours working on them. Recently I have re-discoved film photography. I feel that there is a quality that cant be reproduced in digital. Natural film grain is something special that gives an image more depth and meaning. Its like the difference between MP3 music files and vinyl records. Something that may only be appreciated by some, but when you notice it, you really can appreciate it. Shooting film with vintage cameras has made me a much better all round photographer. Instead of shooting multiple images and picking the best one I now "look" before releasing the shutter. I love Photography. The passion and genuine interest I had as a young boy, dreaming into Nannas photos, has returned to me ten fold. I want to create images that create a lasting impression. Images that in years to come you can look at that will take you to back to a time and place in life. Images that invoke emotion. I love photography.
