I’m an enthusiastic amateur, nothing more; I enjoy taking photographs. It’s a hobby that goes back to teenage years with the pocket money purchase of a Kodak Brownie 127. From there, into 35mm with a Halina Paulette before hitting the seriously heavyweight SLR territory with the astonishingly leaden Russian communist-era Zenit-E. When that predictably failed, a Miranda Sensomat took me through to 1981 when I celebrated the birth of my daughter with my first real SLR – an Olympus OM1.
The OM1 served me well, and still lives on today alongside its lesser sibling, the XA-2. Both worked hard during a three year assignment to the US from 1988 to 1990 but since then fell largely silent. It was ten years later with the advent of ‘digital’, that the 1.3 Megapixel Olympus C-960 reawakened my interest in photography. Ludicrously expensive at the time, but that little Olympus digital ‘Brownie’ soon proved that I still had a reasonable eye for composition. Since that purchase, my consumption of ever increasing data storage is testament to the fact that I still haven’t figured out how to delete unwanted images! The next leap of faith took me to a Nikon D200, output from which the ‘Treescaper’ account on Flickr was born.
Right now, the current cameras of choice are the Nikon D7000 – a sideways shift from the D200 when that body started to show expensive signs of unreliability – and the Panasonic Lumix LX3, which I still consider to be close to perfect for a pocketable camera which gives great results. It’s getting tired, with battery power drain issues, and may be due replacement but along with the OM1 it will always be a favourite.
