A Brief History of Me…
Although my love affair with cameras really only started about 6 years ago, when I was 20 years old, my interest in the whole image capturing process started in my early teens. In 8th or 9th grade technology, we spent a term or so covering black and white film photography. Digital cameras were still just a pipedream; I think my PC at home at the time housed a whopping 120Mb (yes mega-byte) hard drive.
We used pinhole cameras, shot and developed 35mm film and then made subsequent prints in the darkroom. I remember really enjoying that whole process for the first time, but I never thought too much of it after that term at school.
That was until I started playing with a friend’s digital camera when I was about 20. I had never really seen a good quality digital camera up to that point. For the record, a 5 mega-pixel Nikon was quite an awesome little package in the pocket sized camera market of 2002.
Having the opportunity to get instant feedback from the back of the camera made the experimentation of shooting much easier… instant trial and error. Although from a technical stand point it may not be the most efficient way to learn, it can still be very effective.
Since then I have learnt much more of the technical background behind good photography, undertaking a Commercial Photography course at TAFE in Adelaide. Whilst there, I learnt the fundamentals behind lighting, film and paper emulsions; shooting, developing and printing both colour and B&W images from a variety of film formats.
I have also had the amazing opportunity to learn quite a lot on the job whilst working with Adam Bruzzone, who has been a great mentor.
My blog only started in April this year (2008), although the Gallery stretches right back to the end of 2002; an uncategorised reverse-chronological photographic timeline.
The gallery is comprised of images from a variety of formats and cameras. There are some 35mm film shots that have either been scanned from print or negatives, likewise with a few medium format film shots from a Mamiya 6×7 and a twin lens reflex (a Rolleiflex I believe). My Holga also has a few scanned negatives in the gallery, as well as my polaroid camera. For quite a lot of the shots in the gallery I used my trusty Nikon Coolpix 8700, and recently the D300 has been added to the arsenal of creativity.
