My introduction to photography was as a 10 year old using a Kodak Instamatic shooting anything of interest including friends in my neighbourhood who were often dressed as cowboys!
As a teenager I progressed to a 35mm SLR and learned the basics of light metering, control of exposure and depth of field.
However for most of my adult life I used a point and shoot compact simply to record family events and holidays.
In retirement my interest and passion for photography was reignited during an extended tour of New Zealand in February 2024 for which I had purchased a basic Canon DSLR with kit lens. Some of these images feature in my gallery.
I have a longstanding interest in amateur astronomy which expanded into capturing images of my observations. A few if these are included in my gallery.
The Lunar Clock is a composite of images captured by mounting my smartphone camera lens over the eyepiece of my Newtonian  telescope.
This technique also allowed me to capture grainy images of the Andromeda galaxy, Saturn's rings and the Galileon moons of Jupiter.
In October 2024 I was fortunate to capture a very strong Aurora Borealis over Bradford Abbas (included in the gallery) using a Sony mirrorless camera purchased very cheaply on eBay as it can cope so well with the very high ISO settings needed for astro work.
I have experimented with methods of capturing the Milky Way with interesting foregrounds and want to explore more of this theme in the future.
I joined SBACC in November 2024 and have enjoyed the challenge of creating images for competitions on different themes. The feedback from judges has helped me improve, as has seeing and understanding the creative work produced by other club members.
Club photo shoots also add a variety of photographic opportunities and I enjoy photographing wildlife and nature as seen in some of my gallery images.
In summary I find retirement and photography complement each other superbly.

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