Flickr: Jelltex

Having seen others profiles, I thought I would do the same and just write my journey through photography.
My family had a 126 instamatic, and like most families would put one film through it a year, sometimes less. And that was that really. Then one day, a friend of mine bought a Pentax SLR, and I was stunned at the results: so clear, so focused, so well exposed. And so within a few months I had my own SLR, a Mk 1 Pentax P30 with a 50mm lens. I soon bought a cheap generic 28mm, and stumped up the cash for a 70-210 zoom. And within a year, the P30 was not good enough, and I got a Program A body; and so could shoot slide and negative film at the same time. I bought a 24mm to get that really wide angle, and was happy with what I had.
Then, life got in the way, I got married and photography took a back seat. And then one day, when i finally got to go on a good trip witht he family, all my gear, apart from the P30 were stolen from the back of my car in Amsterdam; even worse was the loss of all the films from a two week European road trip.
So, with just the P30, and a 50mm f2.0, I soldiered on. When i upgraded my computer in 1999, and being single again (more life) I got a digital camera bundled in; a Fuji DX10. And for a while it sat in the box, and I carried in taking my slides. Then, one day I took it out of the box, and on a day trip into the Suffolk countryside. That night I downloaded the pictures onto the computer, and e mailed them along with my emails to my frieds. This was a revelation, and after buying ever bigger, and more expensice memory cards for it, we went further and further afield together. A trip to Italy meant that I had to buy a 256meg card to store all the images. And how expensive was that? Anyway, it soon became clear that the DX10 was limited, and an upgrade would be needed.
At this time, a new film camera fell into my lap; a friend was changing over to digital, and would I like to buy his EOS 1? Yeah! And I bid farewell to the P30. Although not right away, the EOS sat in it's box for 6 months; I would sometimes get it out, look at it's wheels, dials and switches, sometimes even switch it on. I was scared.
One day, I was going to Yorkshire for a weekend trip, and packed the EOS instead of the Pentax, deciding I had to come to grips with it once and for all. As You can imagine, the results were fabulous, and I never went back to the Pentax.
In 2005, I left the Air Force, and i had the chance to go on a road trip across America, and I realised the DX10 was not man enough, and I took the plunge to upgrade the computer and camera, and so I was the proud owner of a Sony DCS 100. I bought a 1 gig card for the tip, and the results were very impressive. And that was that, or so I thought.
Then I began to notice spots on some of my images, and they were getting worse. i rease now it was dust, but the camera shop said it was mould, and would cost £160 to send back to Sony to be cleaned. But I had been bewitched by ads for another camera, the EOS 400D, and the shop had a nice black one, and half price memory cards, 4ig for £84. Where do i sign?

And that is where I am now, although I am so impressed with the results of the 400D, and the ease of use, that I am seriously considering selling the EOS 1 to fund a new lens. Also the whole palava of buy slides, the posting them to Fuji, the £1 postage per film, £7 to have them put on cd, and the 10 day wait seems all too much now.

Most of the images on my photostream are from my digital cameras, some are taken from slides at processing by Fuji, and some are scanned from original slides by me, but these did not come out very well, and are of a low resolution. Where they look blurred, the orginal are sharper.

A little about myself: I am forty six years old! God, does it hurt to write that? Twice divorced, now married to Jools. In the past I worked in a factory, did 15 years in the Royal Air Force, and since leaving have delivered beer and horrible chemicals before falling into the geophysical industry. And now since my last employer went belly up, am now working for food and beer vouchers. anywhere I can.

Am now the proud owner of a Canon 50D since the 40D kept having hissy fits and having to back to the Canon faries to be repaired, or not. We'll see how that pans out, I guess.

I am trying to lay off Photoshop and going back to old fashioned photographic skills; exposure and composition.

Currently I have a few projects on the go; one to photograph as many grade 1 and 2* listed buildings in Kent. This is mostly churches and it is churches I am sticking with. As most villages have a church and a pub, I'm also sampling the delights of as many Kentish pubs too, and snapping them wherever possible.
I am trying to go through my slide collection; there's a lot and each scan takes about 10 minutes to do as I want a good quality image. So, I am going back to my first images, some of which were quite good, more by luck I think. And also looking through a trip to Tuscany and the Amalfi coast I did 8 years back. But I completed the biggest project; my trip down the east coast of the US in 2005.

And then there is the records. I have started snapping some records from my collection that I like and am enjoying the comments, most of which seem to be who are they? Never heard of that! And so on.

I will not join any of those post one comment five/ten/fifty groups, and any flashing gifs will possibly be deleted. Maybe, depends on what kind of day I've been having.

And finally, a big one:

Anyone who has what I consider to have a high number of contacts or favourites, after looking at your profile, I may well decide to block you. No offence, but I like the shots I take, and hope you do, but don't need your autobot just clicking through my shots to boost my figures. That is just worthless. Also if your comment is a bland 'nice shot' etc, I may look at others you have comment and come to the conclusion that you are just gaming.

Gaming is the accumilation of contacts and mutual faves to get higher marks from the magic panda and get on explore. If you do, fine, but I'm not going to play.
If I fave or comment on your shot(s) I mean that I like it and that I have written each and every comment every time I look at a shot. I try to say why I like the shot, the light, the POV, the comp, but not always. I hope you'd do the same to me.

If you think I'm gaming; fine, block me too.

Pity the fool.

jelltex.blogspot.com/