My Photography

Just a few words about my photography before the images on the next page.

I have used Nikon gear for a long time, having bought my first SLR (Nikon FG) in 1986. I went digital in 2004 with a D70, and my current bodies are the Nikon D750 and Nikon D3400. The 3400 is fine for most holiday photos, and weighs a lot less than the 750. Ideal for lugging around when there is a lot of walking involved.

I also have a Nikon 1, which is my wife's holiday camera. 

I have what I think is a useful range of lenses but nothing that you need a second mortgage to get hold of (the 200-400 f4 zoom is a wonderful lens but I'm not paying £6k for it!).

My favourite lens for landscapes and indoor architectural shots is the 16-35 f4. For most other shots I use 24-120 f4 or 80-400, an old lens but very useful for long distance shots of wildlife as long as they don't move much (because the lens is slow to focus). For long distance photography of moving objects, I use a 70-200 f2.8, with or without a teleconverter depending on light levels. 

I use a MacBook Pro for all my processing, running Lightroom 4 and photoshop CS5. Both are excellent programs. I've also got Nikon NX2 but never really got into it. I have many of my photos on the MacBook hard drive, but I have all my photos backed up to a networked Lacie 1 Tb HD. I also have a couple of travel 250Gb HDs which I take on holiday and use to back up my daily tally of photos. On a typical long-haul holiday I will take 6-8,000 photos, so I spend a lot of time editing after we get back home.

Since retiring from full time employment I have done a lot more photography including a few assignments. I was the offical photographer at a friend's wedding, and did a fashion shoot for some other friends who were setting up an online dress shop. Some examples of both are in the Gallery. 

I have also done a few small commissions for people who wanted specific photos to be taken. For example, our dog groomer (see Links page) wanted some photos of Coventry Cathedral, which I happily provided in exchange for a free dog haircut. I was also the official photographer for my youngest daughter's trampoline club. I needed a CRB check for that. Sign of the times, I suppose.