I appeared sometime late in the Summer of Love amidst the drama of the moon missions (oh alright, 1969) in a suburb of Manchester called Ashton-under-Lyne.

My parents, Dad at that time an IT Programmer with ICL and Mum, a Teacher, had moved to the area 4 years previously through Dad's job.

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I appeared sometime late in the Summer of Love amidst the drama of the moon missions (oh alright, 1969) in a suburb of Manchester called Ashton-under-Lyne.

My parents, Dad at that time an IT Programmer with ICL and Mum, a Teacher, had moved to the area 4 years previously through Dad's job.

Before long we had moved down to the county everyone goes through but never visits (Bedfordshire) and I spent many years there before emigrating to Hertfordshire and now my current home.

My interest in photography is patchy to say the least. I started off with a Boots 110 format camera with those Flash units that lasted 10 times before you had to chuck them away as each use destroyed each bulb.

Eventually I discovered how to use an SLR (almost) properly on a school trip to France (I'd borrowed Dad's Practika ETL-5 (I think that's right). This led to a trip to a Camera shop in Hitchin (I remember that trip very well indeed) where after a short browse around I/we parted with £110 for my first SLR Camera a Practika BC-1. I loved my BC-1 but due to the price of films and developing it never really got the use it deserved. We even tried on a couple of occasions B&W and developing it ourselves in the darkroom (read Bathroom swiped for the afternoon!)

Eventually my enthusiasm waned until 2004 when I finally kept the promise I had made myself for nearly 10 years to get a DSLR when they became more affordable. This found me one Saturday afternoon walking out of a well-known camera shop in Watford with my brand new Canon EOS 20D and a 300mm lens. Since that time I have travelled extensively around East Anglia following my genealogical, ornithological and just plain curiosical interests and taking photos hither and thither.

To date I have taken in excess of 65,000 on both my EOS20D and it's later partner the EOS40D and enjoyed every moment.

Sometimes I find my interest waning due to various things and this has become apparent in my bliplog as you can see.

Hopefully, from tomorrow, I shall be more active and I plan to start by attempting to get a decent shot of the Black Squirrel at work. Fingers crossed. In the meantime please do give encouragement, it is often much needed. I will try my best to comment too but I am appalling when it comes to communications etc however I have already said I will try harder this year to make time for writing to others.

Anyway, enough drivel. I hope you enjoy my attempts :-)