My photography stemmed from a combination of aviation interests and just wanting to record an image, a moment in time – art was never my primary intention back in the early days. After a while, I started to get more serious, put more money into trying to capture more different things, coming to the realisation that my “current kit” wasn’t capable of responding to my every need, and then ploughing more money into it. The parallels between my photography progression and that with my music equipment are quite stark.
Eventually, I got serious enough to put some real money into it, and purchased a dSLR – a Nikon D60. The reasons for getting that over a Canon are pretty thin, as there wasn’t any serious research involved other than the price point – a newbie isn’t going to spend a grand on his first SLR, so the D60 was the entry level, right at the bottom. Now, coupled with a lens that had decent autofocus performance, I went from there.
Like my music, I have quite specific tastes – shooting aircraft, preferably while doing something interesting. Failing that, motorsport races are acceptable shoe-ins, as long as I can get clear shots (for example, Brands Hatch is a far better venue than Silverstone for this, from both a price and distance point of view). Failing that, I shoot birds in “action”, or landscapes if I’m really clutching at straws.
As an amateur, I don’t really have to “push” myself to be an all rounder, meaning I can skip trying to make good pictures of people, and just shoot whatever I want. Like when I started out with music, the goal was self-satisfaction – the capture of an awkward shot of something in difficult, or very occasional conditions – a dramatic pass or accident in a motor race, an aircraft performing an unusual manoeuvre, streaming vortices; that kind of thing.
I don’t claim to be any good, although it doesn’t hurt to try.
