It is not the camera that takes the picture but the person standing behind it.  Ray Stone.

I used to run a photography club some thirty odd years ago and used the above words to emphasis that despite the advent of digital cameras at the time, it still took the same skill to compose a picture and adjust light and form. It doesn’t matter whether the camera is a point and shoot or a more advanced model, skills are still required in the taking and editing of a picture. It is the photographers eye that sees beauty, composes, adjusts light, and catches the mood he or she wishes to convey to an audience. Photography, like writing, is recording history whenever we put pen to paper or release the shutter. Sometimes a photo is most certainly worth a thousand words. 9/11 is a sad reminder of that, forever etched in the mind by one or two of the photos taken at the time, but photos of heroes and heroines in sport or the movies bring joy or fill us with pride. Such is the power of imagery.

I have always loved using a camera. My first was a small plastic Kodak Brownie – remember them? My father belonged to the Leigh Camera Club near my home town of Southend on Sea and never missed a meeting. The President of the club was the great Alfred Hitchcock who made a couple of visits each year to lecture. I remember while I worked in theater, visiting one of his film locations for “Frenzy,” being filmed by Tower Bridge in London and watching a scene being shot on the embankment. I guess the environment I worked in and my father’s enthusiasm drew me into a hobby that blossomed during my teen years. There were several cameras and a dark room along the way. I even had a voluntary job as photographer for the local STC company who ran a newsletter every month. Holidays were trips to Italy several times including one here to Cyprus and I ended up with hundreds of slides and monochrome negatives – I’m thankful now I don’t have to develop film or catalog and box slides. The digital age has changed photography for ever with many advantages such as being able to edit online. So I have seen the art transform over the years as much I have with my first love – that of writing. In both instances, we protested that the art was being manipulated into a ‘touch button’ future and the skills that we learned and used would be obsolete. Nothing could be further from the truth. The opportunities afforded to us through the fast advance of technology in photography and publishing books have never been more accessible than they are today. Unfortunately, back in the day after marriage, my time was spent on earning a wage to pay a mortgage etc. My photography took a back seat and eventually, apart from holidays and birthdays, it sadly played no further part in my life.

Writing, poetry, lyrics, and the occasional article for the local newspaper became my staple diet and after a year of being single for the third time, (yup – 3rd time), I published my first book. A book of poetry and two other novels would follow until I eventually moved to Cyprus where I published a fourth. A period of readjustment followed where no matter what I tried to do, projects fizzled out to nothing. Then I was single again (4th time) and taking a good look at myself. It was time to change or sink into depression, a place I had already been a few times and didn’t want to go back. I looked around and began to see and appreciate my beautiful surroundings rather than just see them as a blur of color. I was walking and tasting the air and beginning to appreciate form and color once again. Something clicked (excuse the pun) and I had an idea. Over coffee a good friend had suggested that I should take a look at photo-stock companies that supply small business, industry, and private users with all types of photographs. With the seed of an idea in my head I did just that and the seed began to grow into a beautiful idea. After submitting photos to Shutterstock, one of the USA largest in the business, I passed the test that met all technical requirements in order for them to blow up any photo into a sharp poster size print. I set myself targets and am working to a daily schedule, something my publicist has forever beaten me over the head to do. With over 300 photos accepted I still have a long way to go as my target is 2000, but I will reach that goal by the end of this year. 42 photos have already been bought but the target for downloads is a minimum of  100 per month to earn a small income. Writing and photography have merged on this website and later, I plan to sell images here for writers looking for a good cover image for their books. My next novel that I am currently working on will most certainly have one of my photos as the cover.

Advertising in magazines, newspapers, books, and online dominate the world today. Nowadays, pictures of models rub shoulders with images of brick walls, cups of tea, painted doors, water drops on a shiny surface – all in great demand. These pictures form important backgrounds for advertisers to sell us a product or holiday. So today I join the army that supplies a thirsty industry and hope to see some of my work backing an advert for a trip to Cyprus, a bottle of wine, or a store selling electronics. Photography, like writing, will forever change with the times but never fade away.