About

I was given my first camera in 1961 when I was 12 years of age, that’s now some 50-odd years ago; it was a Welsh-built Purma camera which took square photographs on 127 sized film. This had three shutter speeds depending on which way up you held the camera which had a weighted focal plane shutter, the were slow, medium and fast; the fast speed was enough to jolt the camera if you didn’t hold on securely. I used this mainly for holiday snaps until I started work then began to use my father’s German Balda camera which used 120 sized film; the lens was exceptionaly sharp but the camera was a non-coupled rangefinder design so was extremely fiddly to use which meant all spontaneity was lost. In the early 70s I purchased a cheap Practica 35mm camera which soon gave way in 1973 to a Minolta SRT 303 and a selection of lenses. I also purchased a very expensive Durst enlarger during this period.

In the early days I used my camera mainly to photograph my work as a care worker in a children’s holiday home but soon started to record events in and around my home town of Bridgend. In that era I photographed just about everything that was happening locally; carnivals, shows, street events, parades, you name it, I was there!

Inevitably though, times change and by the early 1980s I was really only using my camera to record my other interests, my vintage stationary engines and the shows to which these machines were taken, resulting in hundreds of photographs of steam and vintage rallies from 1975 until the mid 1980s.

I’m not sure when I became passionate about landscape photography and the beginning of my obsession with clouds, but I guess around five years ago when I began to submit my images to flickr. Through this photo-sharing site, a number of friendships have been formed with like-minded photographers which has helped to fire the enthusiasm for my style of extreme low-level, wide-angled photography.

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Since compiling the above notes for my “About” page, my blog has changed direction. It was apparent from its early days that I was never going to sustain a blog about photography alone and started to supplement my mental meanderings with tales from my childhood and other memories. These have now taken over this blog and although there are occasional pages with a photographic theme the majority are of eccentric, weird and nostalgic tales from my past; enjoy!