MrBoring

I won't claim to have first picked up a camera at the age of three, as I was a late starter; I was aged five before I picked up a box brownie. Naturally, I have progressed somewhat from such poor equipment.

In 1975, I bought my first "serious" camera - a twin lens reflex that is a year or two older than me. It served to teach me the rudiments of exposure and the bug bit; within a year, I had progressed to a 35mm SLR.

To cut a rambling tale a bit shorter, I ended up with 2 Pentax MX bodies with winders and various lenses, a Mamiya 645 roll film SLR and an MPP Mk VIII 5x4" view camera; needless to say, they were all manually operated. I still have all those, though I now use only digital cameras - a pair of Lumix G2 cameras (one set for colour and one set for monochrome) and a Casio EX-FH20 which I keep for some of the amazing tricks it does.

I first started taking pictures of models in 1977, at a small studio at the top of a mill in Ancoats, Manchester; the studio closed down the same year or maybe the year after. It was not very inspiring, but it was a start. From that, I took photos in a number of amateur (or pro/am) studios around Manchester, slowly developing an interest and forming some ideas of the sorts of images I wanted - many which I have yet to achieve.

I like, in no particular order: industrial dereliction, working industrial settings, sun-dappled woods, ruined buildings, and graveyards. I would like to take some figure, erotic or glamour photos in such settings. I also like strong side lighting and would like to photograph a toned fitness model against a black background, lit mainly (or entirely) from the side(s).