Photography became a passion of mine 20 years ago. I got interested in photographing my experiences, not just holidays. Diving played an inaugural part in this as over the course of 130 dives, and visiting amazing sites all over the world, I wanted something tangible to record these things and share them.

Starting with various digital point and shoot cameras and a dive housing, I eventually moved to the digital SLR when they first became available. This really helped me to start to understand the basic photographic process, as I had never had a camera with such control before.

I had stopped diving due to a concerning technical dive in the Maldives. Life is too much a gift to play chance with. The Landscape seemed a logical step from the sea! I moved from a Canon 400d to the Canon 5D at the time.

Digital was the choice of medium for a long time. The ability to experiment and take many photographs was a good thing. The one thing I found frustrating was the limited level of detail in 35mm. The photographers I admired all used larger film formats. Obviously there were no 30-60mp digital cameras 15 years ago! Also I didnt like the 2:3 ratio. I was always cropping images to 5x4 which lost me resolution.

So I then went on a journey using Medium Format cameras. A Pentax 67ii was my first choice and I had this camera for some years. I dabbled with a Contax 645 which I regretted, as I had sold my 67ii for it. But it was Large Format that really moved me photographically. The slow and concentrated process of using a 5x4 was meditative. The negative was tonally amazing, it had a 3D quality to it, and of course the details were exceptional. Finally I had a format that got me the results I wanted. With the added camera movements to shift the plane of focus, I could manipulate the depth of field to what I wanted, rather than hyperfocal focusing that I had previously had to do and always struggled with.

I used 5x4 for about 3 years, but life was very much not about photography so although I enjoyed it, the time out with the camera was limited. I then stopped photography for about 5 years.

Iv’e picked up photography again this past year (late 2023) and now have a Digital Medium Format camera, that complements my large format photography beautifully. Due to the cost increases in film though, its use is very limited.