Several years ago, wait a minute! in the 1980's I purchased my first camera, an Olympus OM10. At the time it was a very expensive purchase, for me, that I made in a Dixons store on Oxford Street, London. It was one of my first major purchase after I had secured my first job with a high street Bank. Amazingly, almost 37 years later I still have both, although the camera hardly sees the light of the day anymore. As for the job, well I am still there and still enjoying it as I head towards the Autumn of my career. Soon be time to think about what I will do when retirement (how is that possible BTW) is upon me. Easy? Photography, its a no brainer.
Although the OM10 served me well I did not use it to its full potential. Sadly it soon took a back seat as our children, rightly come to the front seat. In 2004 another opportunity came along to continue to "scratch the itch" as I decided to invest in a Canon 20d. It was around this time I began to look after a website for a local Football League as well one for the local Football Association. I soon found myself needing pictures to compliment the text, which formed the match reports. I soon realised that I could not throw away
another opportunity to develop, excuse the pun my ever growing hobby.
It was an opportunity that I have not missed and in the years that have followed I continued to self teach what is a fantastically enjoyable past time, as well as being extremely rewarding from a satisfaction point of view. In 2013 I took photos at a friends naming party. Candid and natural photos were the genre I used. I was pleasantly surprised with the results. Pictures of people enjoying themselves with natural emotions. I remember the friends daughters, grandmother calling me David Bailey for a joke and to some degree questioning how good I was, or not. Later on that week I presented the photos to her, along with other family members . They were in the form of a video. How rewarding it was to hear a deadly hush and to look up to see three grown adults in tears of joy. How fantastic. The David Bailey comments was totally reversed as a result. If that was not rewarding enough then a couple of weeks later I was asked to take the photos at Sam and Louisa's Wedding.