It was inevitable….

Well it’s only taken 7 years and a Global Pandemic but the time had come to create a proper website, positively supersonic for yours truly as I’m at Olympic standard when it comes to procrastination!

One thing that I knew that I would have to do is to learn to take better photographs. I bought a Digital SLR years ago, a Canon 350d when they first came out, I had a proper job then and I can’t remember why I bought it but I never really learnt how to use it and the hundreds and thousands of photos I’ve subsequently taken over the years for eBay have been satisfactory at best. The camera stuck on automatic point and shoot mode in Mother’s kitchen with all the lights on.

So I thought, right, I need to chuck some money at this and sort it out. I made a list. I bought a tripod, muslin backgrounds, a set of lights, all sorts and all off eBay of course. What I wasn’t going to buy was a new camera, this one was only just run in! I decided that I was going to have a proper studio set up too, the thought of setting up all this kit then having to deconstruct it again like some sort of music festival was not going to happen.

Luckily, I’ve got the pigsty, well that’s what we call it. At the top of the garden was a derelict Victorian pigsty with privy attached and it got rebuilt at much expense of sweat and cash as my office, not as my study you understand as I already had one of those but my office, all to maintain that much vaunted work / life balance that used to be talked about before everyone started working from home anyway.

It never got used did it, I packed up my proper job around two months after it was finished, impeccable timing as always. As you can see from the photographs it became a tool shed / dumping ground and as the dealing part of my life took off it also became a storage room for cardboard boxes and bubble wrap; the really thick stuff I get from the local shop for nothing.

I made some space as you can see.

You can see the floor now; impressive, if you don’t look too close! All the tiles were reused, either out of the kitchen or out of the old privy. You wouldn’t believe some of them, they are as thick as a brick!

I’m rambling and getting off topic, sorry.

I distracted myself for several weeks by deciding what gardening tools to keep and which to put into auction, fixing some in the process. I installed all the gear, it took hours, a permanent solution was definitely the right idea. Several days later and with camera manual in hand (oh yes, I knew where it was just never read it) and I plucked up the courage and I entered my new photography studio.

I fiddled with everything that could be fiddled with, the lights, the tripod and I put a cover over the roof light to reduce the shadows.

Then there was the camera, iso setting, f stops, white balance to name but a few and I only have one lens, the standard 18-55mm lens that came with the camera when I bought it. I took thousands of photographs, I was in there for days, only came up for air and nearly all of them were terrible.

Well, I take more photographs now than I did on automatic mode and it takes three times as long but having the tripod is a godsend, at least the photographs are in focus, which is an improvement.

I’m summoning up the courage to have another go at fiddling, maybe I’ll buy a new camera after all?

A few bits that went on eBay