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About Me
I was born in Cootamundra, NSW, Australia in 1968. My first real interest in photography came at the age of ten when Mum & Dad bought me a Kodak Instamatic 126 camera. This camera took the 126 type cartridge film, available in colour and black & white. I had plenty of fun with this camera and enjoyed taking images and waiting for the film to be processed and to see the results, back then it took a week to get your images back from the processing lab. Film and processing was very expensive, you had to be mindfull of this when clicking away.
My father use to take sporting images on weekends for the local paper and processed his own negatives. I found some of his gear and started to get interested in how this was done. He had a SLR camera and I use to take the odd photo with it. In my second year of high school I was introduced to a local man through the local camera shop, he owned a darkroom. He taught me how to process negatives and prints, starting out with black & white film and then colour slide film. I found the full process very interesting and rewarding, from taking the image to seeing the final print come to life in a tray of developer under the red safe light in the darkroom. I learned how to retouch old photos with a airbrush. I worked as an photographers assistant for a local photographer helping out at weddings and other events on weekends.
I was lucky enough to receive my first SLR camera in 1983. A christmas present from Mum & Dad, it was a Konica TC SLR camera with a 40mm lens. Over the next few years I took a lot of images with that camera. I did some after school and holiday work for the local newspaper. They used Konica equipment so I had access to longer lenses which came in very handy for sports photography. |
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Being a local sportsman, I became very interested in sporting photography. I was a member of the local camera club and won the Schofield award in 1983 and the B Grade points score award in 1984, my first year competing at club level.
In 1984 I entered the Sydney Morning Herald's School Photographic competition, which was opened to schools all over Australia. I was awarded first place and a gold medal for my image titled "darkroom" in the open section for colour slides. This slide as well as two of my black & white prints were selected to represent Australia in an exhibition in San Francisco, the same year.
I left school at the end of 1984 and started an apprenticeship in Automotive Electrics. I continued to do some photography and darkroom work on weekends. Over the years I continued working in the automotive and telecommunications industry while studying Information Technology at night through TAFE. It was a change of a career from cars to computers and the digital age that re ignited my passion for photography. I started out with a basic point and shoot digital camera and soon found that I was really getting back into photography again and needed more.
In 2001 I started work at a Nowra company called Air Affairs Australia. They are involved in the manufacture and operation of training solutions for defence forces. I started out as their IT Manager but my interest in photography soon had me doing all of the photographic work and the company website. Today I look after all of their marketing requirements.
In 2003 I received my first digital SLR camera, a Nikon D70 with a 18-70 and 70-300mm lens. This camera really got my photography into full swing again, taking plenty of images for myself and work. I enrolled in a Nikon digital photography course, which taught me the processing side of digital imagery. I did courses on website design and development. I have since completed a diploma course in Mastering Digital Photography and two Adobe courses, Photoshop and In Design.
Over the past few years I have been doing a lot of photography. I joined the Australia Digital Photo of the day website and have won numerous "Photo of the Day" awards for my work. I started taking photos for the local Rugby Union club in 2006, that year they won the grand final and have continued to photograph their matches. I became a sponsor of the club in 2008 and photograph their matches and take the team photos each year.
I joined the Australian Photographic Society in 2007 and have had my work accepted into exhibitions in Australia. In 2008 my work was selected to represent Australia in an International Federation of Photographic Art (FIAP) biennial event in Slovakia , where Australia finished in 6th place out of 46 countries entered. My images have also been chosen to represent Australia in an exhibition in China and in the annual tri nations event with New Zealand and South Africa.
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I enjoy all forms of photography , but if I had to pick a favourite subject it would be sport and motorsport in particular. I enjoy attending motorsport events and capturing images. There is plenty of action and colour at motorsport events. I also like capturing the human element of motorsport, not just the drivers but the pit crew and fans.
I have been lucky enough to been able to photograph some very interesting places and things over the past few years. I like the country and outback places, the scenes, the characters and subjects in the country are a real favourite of mine. I have sold a lot of framed images of my country scenes and events.
I enjoy the opportunity of taking aerial photographs. I have been lucky enough over the last few years to have photographed some target trials out of a jet fighter aircraft. All of the safety gear you wear plus the environment of cramped cockpit and breathing through an oxygen mask makes it very challenging, but very rewarding too.
I have been proudly using Nikon equipment now for the past 5 years and have added a couple of professional camera bodies and lens to my kit. I was accepted into the Nikon Professional Services (NPS)Lite program in 2008. I find that good gear helps in getting great images but you do need to know how to see a good image and take it and thats where my early photography training is a big advantage. Even when I sit in front of the computer to process my images I see a lot of functions in Photoshop that I did in the darkroom all of those years ago.
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