Who am I?
About
Like many photographers, my path to this point has not been straightforward, though with hindsight there's always been an alternative thread to my technical life bubbling gently away in the background.
I began my career with a physics degree which led me into the electronics industry. Five years of circuit design, then twenty five* years as a software engineer at IBM were followed by a period employed as a technical illustrator. Eventually I realised the joys of technical work life had paled: time for a new challenge ...
Since my school days photography and nature have complemented and enriched my day-to-day life. I worked from my mid-teens till leaving university at a garden centre and local authority parks department. Photography played its part, helping to fund my way through university with team and individual portrait shots. While working in software design I spent five years in part-time education studying for the (old) RHS Diploma in Horticulture **, with the intention of a career change that never materialised.
When I left 'conventional' work my lifelong interest in nature and photography drew me into landscape and botanical imagery. Whether photographing the natural world from more unusual angles or close-up studio shots, both opened up my visual world.
Now I'm in a different time and place and corporate life is just a (bad) memory ...
* To be accurate, I narrowly missed 25 years and my "long service clock". Took me a while to recover from that disappointment ;-)
** The Master of Horticulture stage 1 was renamed as the old RHS Diploma in Horticulture, which has subsequently been replaced by the current examinations
As a mug shot can be helpful and hopefully not too off-putting...
... here's one I took earlier.