I am yet another of those who received a Brownie camera as a young child - took countless pictures with this camera, all black and white, of course. And then my first darkroom kit - my darkroom was the tiniest of closets - only a child could fit, and a contact printer. And eventually I graduated to a darkroom in the basement, made from a grand piano box. Most of my life I have had a camera handy and a darkroom in the basement. Finally making that transition to a digital camera.

My photography has always been for my own enjoyment - never a profession. I did spend many years as a researcher and electron microscopist, and relied heavily on photography for my research - countless hours in the darkroom developing photographic plates and prints.

But, the pictures posted on this site are simply for my enjoyment and pleasure. I have taken time to know what I have photographed and posted - a flower, bug, bird. I am certainly not a biologist or birder - but more interesting if I know something about what I have photographed!  A friend was amused at this site, remarking that it seemed I actually thought people would read this stuff!

There is a process that I have followed with my pictures, going back to that Brownie camera. I tend to take many pictures, and print a few. In the old days I made contact sheets and studied each under magnification, looking for focus, quality, lighting, subject, and so on. Generally I was happy to print one or two out of a sheet of 36 pictures. I do the same now with digital photographs - evaluating and rating by the same criteria. Those that I select to keep I name - my own naming scheme that includes subject, location and date. And everything else I delete - many thousands of pictures a year.

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