Going way back, I started taking pictures from about the age of
twelve (well over 20 years ago!). I remember visiting camera shops
in town just to look in the shop windows at the latest Canon and
Nikon auto-exposure (but still manual focus) SLR cameras and lenses.
The Canon AE1, I think it was called, was one of them. I marvelled
at the £100+ price tags and dreamed of the day when I would
have one of my own. On my 14th birthday, I received a Zenith-E SLR
camera with a 50mm lens; at the time I thought it was the ultimate
camera, the absolute business. My interest in photography had begun.
It started with a fish
I would probably have never developed an interest in photography
if my Dad hadn't insisted on taking me fishing from a very early
age, just as soon as I was able to swim. I remember we used to sit
on wicker boxes on the canal tow path, Yorkshire sandstone mills
towering on our backs, barges chugging up and down in front. Dad
wasn't really interested in photography so, for those early years,
we didn't carry a camera and unfortunately have few, if any, photographic
reminders of those freezing cold winter days catching absolutely
nothing! Some things haven't changed to this day!
I can't remember exactly when I started taking fishing pictures,
it was probably in my late teens when the freedom of learning to
drive allowed me to venture further afield out on my own. I started
'specimen hunting', fishing for carp, the bigger the better, and
wanted to photograph every fish, photograph every lake, and photograph
the landscapes and nature around me. I would camp for days on the
lake or river bank, and still do, absorbing the nature, the rolling
hill landscapes and all that British greenery that so many of us
take for granted.
 My
Zenith-E SLR camera was built by the Russians, built like a Russian
tank, and if you've never heard of a Zenith-E before, everything,
absolutely everything, was manually operated using dials and lens
rings. You even closed down the aperture manually before pressing
the shutter button. How things have changed. The reason I'm mentioning
all this is that using such old, antiquated camera gear helped me
understand how to set up for a picture without any assistance from
electronic wizardry, no automated exposure metering, no automatic
focusing, no motorised film wind-on and it didn't need any batteries.
Who has ever heard of such a thing in this day and age? A great way
to learn. I used that camera for years and still have it in my fishing
tackle shed and that's how I started my interest in photography.
read on (about setting up your
camera)
Let loose in the Rockies and my first motorsport
event
Photographing wildlife and watery landscapes, not just fish captures,
has always inspired me to keep pressing that shutter button and in
September 1999 a trip to Canada meant it was time to retire the old
Zenith and upgrade my camera gear. Killer whale watching, wildlife
in the Rockies and Indy Cart racing would be too much for the old
thing. The camera that is, not me.
What camera gear should I buy? How much should I spend? I didn't
really know because I tend not to read much about such things unless
I'm in the market to buy. So, not really knowing what I was doing,
a trip to a local camera shop found me chatting with the knowledgeable
shop owner. He recommended a Canon EOS 50E, a camera I still use
today. Why this camera? It's built well, great for the outdoors,
has excellent features without being complicated, and most importantly,
rather than blow all my money on a camera body, I had money to spare
to buy a good lens, a Canon EF28-105mm standard zoom which I also
still use today. It seems a bit of a waste to me, buying a top-of-the-range
camera body if you've no money left to buy a decent lens. After all,
the quality of the lens optics has a huge influence on the sharpness
or clarity of the final picture.
 Why
that particular lens? I wanted a good quality, compact, lightweight
lens for general day-to-day use that would operate quickly and quietly.
Wide angle 28mm for landscape and fishing pictures (and rally car
action on corners and hairpins) through to 105mm for zooming in on
detail when needed. The lens needed manual focus capabilities (I
don't like everything to be automatic and out of my control - a throwback
to the Zenith-E days) and it must focus without rotating the front
lens element so that I could use a polarizing filter. If the front
of the lens rotates as you focus, you can't use polarizing filters
properly. I still use this lens today, and it's probably the one
I use the most, so the choice can't have been all that bad. read
on (about photography in Canada and Indy Cart racing, my first
experience of motorsport photography)
My first rallying experience
I really enjoyed Indy Cart motorsport photography in Vancouver
and back in the UK, a few months later, my brother-in-law was co-driving
in the UK's Peugeot Super 106 Cup and I volunteered to take photos
for the rally team. Not really knowing what to expect I thought there
was no harm in giving it a go. That's how I approach all my photography
- give it a go and learn as you go along. There's no substitute for
hands-on experience.
 Rory
Galligan, the rally driver, asked if I wanted a passenger seat ride
during the team's test runs. Without hesitation I said yes. I couldn't
believe it. This was my first ride in a rally car. The agility of
the little Peugeot was amazing as we swooped through lefts and rights
onto a long straight. I found myself chatting to Rory as we thrashed
along the dirt track and I was foolish enough to encourage him to
go faster. "Go on!" I was shouting through the intercom
and, true to form, Rory pushed the car to 90mph as we rapidly headed
straight for an old oak tree on the outside edge of a 90-right. I
pressed both my feet hard to the floor controlling my imaginary double-foot
brake pedal when all I really needed to do was watch Rory brake smoothly,
flick the back end of the car with the steering and tweak the handbrake
on. The car swung gracefully round the oak tree missing my door by
a 'reassuring' metre, the power was back on and we were away. An
incredible experience, and needless to say, when we returned back
to service, I was hooked! So it's all Rory's fault. Being 'hooked'
involved covering 16 rounds of the 106 Cup over the next two years,
a mountain of film and some fantastic experiences.
Sometimes you just need to move on
In the early days I had this thing about using a specific camera
set-up for everything. I hit upon an approach to rally photography
that I thought, at the time, would work for everything. You may have
done the same at some point. I used polarizing filters on everything,
I used long lenses for everything, and the same film type for everything.
The results were great from the point of view that the pictures got
me noticed in the rally world and there was rarely a really bad roll
of film but I was still learning and had yet to develop the confidence
to experiment and try new things.
Slide photography changed everything
All changed though when I started to use slide film. Whole rolls
of film were coming out with poor exposures. Everything was coming
out too dark and the contrast was too high. It was then, when difficulties
began, that I really started to become a photographer. I realised
I need to learn skills for different situations, for different lighting,
and I needed to learn when to use a specific camera and lens combination,
when to use flash, when to use filters (and when not to), when to  use
exposure compensation, when to let the camera set up the exposure
and when to go manual. But it's only when your photos turn out a
disappointment that you take a step back and question what you are
doing. Always review your pictures and ask yourself what went wrong,
what could have been better, what could I have done differently,
why did that photo come out too dark and the next one perfect? Start
to analyse your photographs, learn from your results and fine tune
your approach and you can't fail to become a better photographer
taking better pictures.
Using slide film taught me a lesson; there was a great deal more
to photography. More attention to detail was required when setting
up the shot. More thought was needed before the shutter was pressed
and my attitude to the 'volume' of pictures changed. I stopped taking
thousands of pictures just for the sake of it. That extra bit of
thought not only helped me learn and take better pictures, it saved
me money too!
More rallying adventures
The British Rally Championship, ANCRO (UK) National Championship,
BTRDA (UK) Series, Historic Rally Championship (UK), World Rally
Championship, and goodness knows what else has been seen through
my camera viewfinder since 2000 including round after round of the
Peugeot 206 Cup but nothing quite matches those early days when,
for me, it was all new and exciting.
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