About me
I am a semi-professional photographer based in Watford, near London, UK. I specialise in architecture and landscape photography but like to branch out into as many different types of photography as possible.My philosophy is straightforward: I can always get better. I try as hard as possible to be objective about every photograph I take and to see what makes one photo work when another doesn't. My eye is particularly drawn to abstract detail and repetitive, geometric patterns, which is probably why I enjoy architecture photography so much.
I have been taking photographs for as long as I can remember. I started with a Praktica MTL-50, and graduated to a Praktica BX-20 when I had earned enough in a holiday job to upgrade. In 1991 when I went to university I stopped taking photos, as my studies (and excessive socialising) took up too much of my time, and for several years after that I didn't really get involved seriously in much photography.
However, the breakthrough happened in 2002, when I went to Iceland with my family for the second time. I had taken with me a Fujifilm Finepix 6900z digital camera, which allowed me the freedom to take whatever I wanted whenever I felt like it, without worrying about using up endless rolls of film, and the photographs I came back home with were so encouraging that I decided to start taking my photography seriously again. So I switched back to film (as the Fuji camera wasn't nearly good enough for serious photography) and started kitting myself out with professional equipment. This enabled me to return back from a third holiday in Iceland, in 2006, with a set of photographs which I feel completely justified the investment.
Now I've returned to digital, having found the perfect camera for me in the Canon EOS 5D, a full-frame, 12.8 megapixel model that allows me to make the most of my wide-angle lens and produce images of sufficient quality and resolution to sell as stock photography. I managed to persuade my long-term partner to allow me to go back to Iceland without her and our son, instead taking with me some friends and spending the whole week doing nothing but taking pictures. Having returned home with the pictures you can see here I have come to realise just how much I enjoy time with the camera.
Equipment
Canon EOS 5D
Canon EF 16-35mm L f/2.8 II
Sigma 50mm EX-DG Macro
Sigma 100-300mm EX-DG f/4
Canon Speedlite 580EX II
Canon Speedlite 430EX
Manfrotto 055XPROB
Lowepro Vertex 100 AW
Apple 15" MacBook Pro
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
Adobe Photoshop CS3