Why?

I have been interested in photography for a long time, but have never really had the time, or to be more honest, never really made the time, to indulge in this activity. I recall trying unsuccessfully to take close up images of toys with my mother’s Agfa 35mm as a child, and searching for something  inspirational, from the perspective of a bored teenager, in Essex in the early 80’s. I briefly played around with a 35mm Centon DF-300 SLR and lenses in the mid 90’s but many other commitments took over.

All this time the world of the digital camera and digital processing was slowly evolving.

It was a few things “coming together” that renewed my interest in continuing this journey, not least the fact that photography is something that does not require great physical fitness or stamina (unless planning a remote expedition) and is something that, hopefully, can be continued in my dotage.

The first stimulus was buying a good digital camera for my wife, which opened up the possibility of controlling aperture and shutter speeds, and also had good resolution and a superb optical zoom. We had used a multitude of digital compact cameras for family snaps and for eBay listings since the late 90’s, starting with a 1.1 megapixel Fuji and slowly upgrading up over the years, including an appalling experience with Kodak, but this was something in a different league. I guess I had fallen behind the times.

The second activity was my daughter taking a summer course, and subsequently a High School elective, on black and white photography, which necessitated me digging up the Centon and helping her with some theory, and resulted in us buying a second hand enlarger an installing a makeshift dark room in the basement.

Thirdly, my wife, obviously seeing my increasing interest, pointed out a  good deal on a decent compact camera (Panasonic DMC-LX5) on Amazon which pushed me to make a spontaneous purchase, an activity for which I am not renowned.

Since then I have explored a few books on technique, bought a few accessories, become a devotee of digital manipulation and the creative possibilities this brings, firstly through Google’s Picasa and then through the incredibly powerful (and free!) GIMP editor.

Moving on from the trusty LX5 to Panasonic’s GX-1, the mirrorless micro four-thirds (m43) format and then onto the next generation GX-8 has afforded me the opportunity to use a variety of lenses and explore my creativity further.

The world of GIMP has also opened up a latent talent for other graphic art as well, and this seems to be taking me off on a parallel artistic track. It has also opened my eyes a lot on how I see the world as well, which is not a bad thing.

Thank you for joining me in this increasingly rambling journey and please feel free to comment on anything!

Update 1: Well, it has been nearly 4 months and over 100 posts and it’s fair to say that the old blog has morphed considerably. It may have started out as another  photography blog but I’m glad to see it evolving with me, with regular extensions not only into the graphic art, as I had expected, but also into poetry and short stories, which I enjoy immensely. My thanks go to many other bloggers of WordPress for providing cerebral stimulation.

Thanks again for taking the time to read this!

~Richard