I started taking photographs at the tender age of 12 in 1986 using a Zenith camera passed down from my great uncle. It was an awkward beast with no automatic features but it taught me a lot about the fundamentals of photography. Once I'd caught the bug however I pined for a more modern camera. That camera was Pentax Program A purchased in 1987 and which was a great little camera that I still miss.

A teacher at school taught a friend and I how to use a darkroom to develop black & white photographs. With the onset of digital photography this is now a dying art but there's nothing quite like seeing those images appear before you on a blank piece of paper.

My next camera was a Pentax SFXn which I purchased in 1990. This had lots of extra features such as automatic focus, automatic winder, automatic exposure bracketing, automatic ISO setting etc. It was a nice camera which I enjoyed using but it was heavy, bulky and noisy. It did however allow me to take some great shots, with most of this website featuring shots from this camera (see Barnard Castle Countryside, Castleton Countryside and Northern Italy for examples). However it didn't age well and the autofocus started to make grinding noises so it was time for a new camera.

It wasn't until 2003 that I dipped my toe into the digital camera market. SLR digital cameras at this time were still prohibitively expensive so I decided on a simple point and shoot that I could use for snapshots. I got a Fuji Finepix A202 for less than £100 which at the time was a bargain. I soon realised that this little camera was also capable of far more than simple snapshots (see my London shots for examples).

I also soon realised the benefits of digital photography. Being able to take a photograph and immediately see the results was a revelation. So I soon required a camera with more features and one that would give me the ability to use manual settings. So in 2004 I purchased a Canon Powershot A80. This is another great camera which offers full manual override of all settings and produces some stunning images (see my Mont Blanc shots for examples).