Passionate Light

I began my photographic adventure when I was younger. Curiosity of the process of capturing an image, of course then I only had disposable cameras, or the occasional polaroid. Eventually I would get what I thought was my first good film camera. It took regular 35mm film, though it had a fixed zoom range. This was during a time when digital was really beginning to become a contender, or at least in my world view at the time. With my little snap shot camera I did my best to capture things that interested me.

It’s a shame in a way I didn’t continue to pursue my love of photography, instead began trying to carve out a life. Photography changed more and more almost month by month until I finally dove back into the idea once more. I was cautious at first, purchasing a super zoom bridge camera, going out and trying to take photos in every manner of place, but especially at night. Astrophotography absolutely dazzled me and unfortunately the little bridge camera wasn’t able to produce the results I wanted. It prompted me to begin looking for a camera that could do what I wanted it to do, despite not having the knowledge to accomplish what it was that I wanted.

I went through many different systems to find the camera I thought would solve all of my problems, and in many ways, at the time, it did. Using the world wide web to research all the different ways to get the results I wanted, my journey began anew, revisiting locations realizing that despite having all of the knowledge from the internet what I didn’t have was the most important part…. Experience.

For five years I went out often, taking photos, trying to break out of shooting snapshots and actually learning to compose a scene. Learning the ins and outs of each feature on the camera, then of course working a full time job to pay for my small trips with the camera. Five years is, and isn’t a lot of time to learn a craft like photography. I started my first few shoots thinking all I had to do was hit the button and those incredible scenes would be perfect every time. Taking only a handful of exposures on a scene, only to be disappointed when I couldn’t make the images work the way I thought they should.

This is where passion comes in. You can choose to dwell on the idea of failure, or you can persevere and try and improve. It’s difficult to march ever onward when you feel you’re not improving. Worse still, all the photographers I was listening too at the time all seemed to agree that once you had taken a certain amount of photos you would be “Better”. Yes, you improve every time you go out, you gain experience. You gain knowledge, improve the way you carry your gear, improve the way you approach a scene. These aren’t things you can learn from reading about it [at least not in my case, your experiences may vary!], these are things you learn from doing. The word “Better” starts to loose its meaning, you’re just developing a style, developing your eye. The idea of better begins to loose its meaning, more importantly there is no magic number when you reach this idea of “Better”.

When 2020 began I was still using my now six year old camera, enjoying it, but I was ready to move onto a slightly newer camera. Once again I looked at all the cameras I wanted, but made the decision to stick with the camera system I had been using all this time. Newer yes, more features absolutely. I was comfortable with the camera right out of the box and immediately began trying out all these new megapixels. It wasn’t long before the world went into lockdown, and suddenly I found myself with more spare time than I knew what to do with…. That’s when I made the decision, start a photography company, my adventure has really only just begun.