Fwiw…

I’m an amateur photographer who is pretty excited about making images. I enjoy the challenge of learning all the skills - learning how to work with my camera out in the field to capture decent compositions, and then of working with Lightroom and Photoshop to craft those images into something that I like. The breadth and depth of the skills to master is seemingly infinite - but probably very good for my aging brain!

Background? I’m a Canadian with a business school education who had the good fortune to land in the computer industry in the mid-80’s. But I was a square peg in a round hole - never really a corporate guy. In the early 90s, my wife and I took the opportunity to move to Scotland, started the long process of easing ourselves off the corporate track and began our Grand Adventure. I dabbled in a little photography in the early 90s, but it didn’t stick. In the late 90s, I started a dot.com, went bust, regained my footing, started a software company in 2003 then sold to a larger fish in 2009. It had taken me about 20 years, but I was finally free to spend my time doing stuff that I wanted to do. I went off to tilt at several other windmills - chiefly cycling and curling - and didn’t really pick up my camera in anger until November 2024. Since then, it has become an all-consuming obsession.

On a whim, I signed up to a photo tour in Northumberland in Nov 24, began rubbing shoulders with some very talented, devoted creative-types, and promptly caught ‘the bug’. At long last, I figured out that it’s the creative process that is deeply fulfilling. I will never achieve the heights of so many truly amazing photographers, but I don’t care. I just love the feeling of being out there in nature, snapping away, trying to build an image that generates a bit of awe in me.

Now, trying to understand why the creative process is such a buzz for me will keep my therapist in business for another 20 years. For the time being, I’m just gonna go with it.