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As my horizons expanded in 2008 because of the convenience of digital cameras, I found myself trying subjects that I had previously ignored, for the most part. I collected photos of flowers, birds, patterns and shapes, and curiosities. I could now easily crop an image to show the subject to best advantage, as I did with the flower above. I could take a few photos of interesting refraction patterns in water, as below, because it didn’t cost anything to fire off a string of shots. I could experiment with exposures, adjusting aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings just to try the options.…

Square photos don’t usually draw viewers’ eyes. People tend to like off-centre compositions and negative space, which give their eyes something to engage with. But I like the square crop and centred composition of this photo from 2007. It illustrates my comments from the 2002 post about missing the freedom to crop and manipulate images. As I got into the swing of using the Nikon DSLR, I started to enjoy the freedom to crop and enhance my photos using Photoshop. It had been years since I processed photos in a darkroom, but the intention was still there. You can see the original…

In April 2006, on my fiftieth birthday and 38 years after the birthday at the start of this blog, I got my first digital SLR. It was a Nikon D50. The D50 was an entry-level camera but I loved it. I have since moved on by a few models, but in 2006 I rejoiced in returning to an SLR. I chose Nikon because I wanted an upgrade path. I had been stung by Olympus some years before when they seemed to abandon the mid-range SLR market. I wanted to upgrade the OM1 but my only Olympus-mount option at the time was a…

In 2005 I started work as a public relations officer in local government in Albany. When my employer learned that I could take usable photos, I was encouraged to acquire a digital SLR for the organisation. I began to use it to photograph people, events and local attractions. The photos I took for work belong to the organisation, but I began to take some similar photos in my own time, like the one above, using the Olympus digital. I live in an attractive area popular with tourists, and I started to photograph some of the attractions like a tourist. It was great…

Marg and I were fortunate enough to be able to travel overseas in 2004, visiting Japan, Denmark and France. It was the first time I had been out of the country since 1977. I decided that the old Olympus OM-1, which had accompanied me on that 1977 trip, was past its use-by and it was finally time to go digital. For my first venture into digital photography, I bought a small point-and-shoot Olympus that produced a 3.2 megapixel image.It was a start. I got reasonable photos that would have printed well enough at the usual printshop size. Like any tourist, I took…

Somewhat appropriately, I took this photo of the family home as my contact with the film era drew to a close. If you have followed my blog from the beginning, you might recognise the house that was the backdrop to the first photo in 50TTL (1968: Frame one), which I count as the first photo I ever took with a camera of my own. This was the place where I learnt to take photos and where I processed and printed my black-and-white film. The little laundry out the back was my makeshift darkroom. But the photo above was taken because the house…

In 2002, our son Tim celebrated his 16th birthday with a party at our property. He invited his school friends, including a German exchange student. I asked her if she had ever come across the German magazine to which I contributed stories and photos. She said she had, and I showed her some of the issues that included my work. She recognised one of the covers and said she had that issue at home. My story in that edition was about one of Tim’s friends, whose summer job was playing the guitar in the forest at the Tree Top Walk. She was…

In 2001, my photography narrowed to the necessary. I used my camera to illustrate quite a few stories. Most of them were for the German magazine and focused on the lives of teenagers in Australia. I contributed stories on unusual achievements or undertakings by young people: a 17-year-old girl who completed a solo walk on the Bibbulmun Track; a teenage boy who built his own accommodation on the family property; the young girl above who loved circus skills and cello. However, I was worried about the reliability of my camera at the same time as I began to depend on it. As…

From about the mid-1990s, the internet started to have a significant impact on the world beyond academia. By 1996, our family had an internet-connected PC but it was not until 1999-2000 that digital connections started to play a part in my photography. Digital cameras had been generally available from the mid-90s but they were expensive, and I persisted with my film camera for a while. However, the late 1990s were a transition period when digital imaging came into my life after I acquired a flatbed scanner. I could now scan prints of my photos, manipulate them on the computer and email them…

Photo highlights are few and far between for 1999. I used my camera in association with some work for a local school and on another couple of jobs. The school students are all adults now, but it still seems wrong to me to publish photos of school kids without specific permission, so I choose to withhold those images. Some of those photos were used on the school’s website that I helped to develop. In each case, we sought and received the permission of the parents. This is a continuing issue for anyone who takes photos in a place where children are under…