Setting my sights

Welcome to my little web journal. If you have stumbled across this accidentally, then I apologise sincerely.  This is not something that I have really intended for the consumption of others, but rather an exercise for myself and a diary of my experiences with a camera.

My friends and family all agree I need a hobby, something that isn’t related to games and PlayStation, or directly to social media.  Of course, I can’t resist the temptation to involve social media in some respect, so I thought it would be interesting to keep a journal of my journey into the realms of “how not to shoot a sticker”



My Dad loved his old Pentax SLR, something which I inherited and have never taken a photo with. That is something I am a little embarrassed to admit.  Am I about to dust it off and start taking photos? Probably not, we now live in a digital world and a Digital SLR camera will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine.

I have a plan. It is relatively simple. I will buy a camera, I will read as much as I possibly can and then I will take the perfect picture, sell it and retire wealthy and happy.  It is at this point in my conversations with friends that they smile politely and start ignoring everything else I say. In truth my goals are somewhat less lofty and are summarised below.  Maybe it is something I will refer back to when I ask myself later, “why am I doing this again? “

1. I have always admired the effect that a good photograph can have on a person. It can make you smile, laugh, cry or stare in wonderment. I would love to be able to, at some point in my life create something which can affect a person in one of those ways.
2. When I was young I considered myself creative, now I consider myself busy.  I need an outlet and an excuse to do something creative with my spare time.
3. There is a social component to this; I want to take up a hobby that will bring me together with other people.  I want to meet new people, get better acquainted with ones I already know and share experiences, particularly within London.

So there is the motivation and the history. During the course of the next few months I plan to document each step in the gradual assent of an idea, into a hobby and perhaps into what could well be my next obsession. I am under no illusions that photography is a subject that many people can find themselves getting lost in. My hope, is that to whatever level I find myself getting into this, I will enjoy it, learn something and most importantly make new friends and build on existing ones as I go along.