About

I’ve worked in the IT industry since the late nineteen eighties. Attending the University of New South Wales in Sydney Australia, I graduated with a Bachelor of Computer Science and Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degrees. I work in the Telecommunications sector but my primary fields of expertise are in Computer and Network Security, the Internet and Unix Systems Administration.

I am married with three children (all daughters) and have lived in Sydney since moving here to attend university.

An IT person by trade turned to passionate enthusiast photographer by choice. I purchased my first D-SLR (the Nikon D90) in 2009 and have practiced and honed my craft since that time. I have also “accumulated” all manner of useful photographic lenses, gear and accessories and upgraded through two camera bodies (the Nikon D7000 and currently the Nikon D600).

I first acquired a taste for photography in my early high school years when my parents bought me an Olympus OM-10 and some lenses, and with my father, I setup a black and white darkroom in our garage at home. I was heavily involved with scouting and outdoor activities and my camera served as a way of documenting my life and the places we explored during my teens.

When I moved to Sydney to attend university, photography went to the wayside as I focused on studies and computers :). After uni I dabbled with a succession of film and early point and shoot digital cameras (I had the first Nikon Coolpix 900) but nothing quite inspired me or gave me the control over images I was looking for.

Eventually after having three beautiful daughters and feeling severely constrained trying to document their lives with mediocre cameras, I finally invested in my first D-SLR (the Nikon D90) in late 2009. Since that time my passion for photography has grown nearly to an obsession and I’ve spent the time since researching technique, practicing and honing my craft.

I love to learn new (photographic) things, experimenting with new learned techniques and tools and I’ll pretty much shoot almost any photographic genre there is (architecture, cityscapes, macro, candid portraits, events, sport, etc). However what I probably love to do most is landscape/seascape and night (light painting) photography. My best work may well be considered my long exposure photography. Night photography – like light painting and star trails – is usually long by default, generally anywhere from many minutes to many hours for a single frame. Photographing seascapes and landscapes with long multi minute exposures before sunrise or after sunset during the twilight hour is such a serene and rewarding time – I love the peace and the spectacular displays nature puts on.

I am a highly technical person by nature and for my IT work. I love photography – both because it can be highly technical and there is always more to learn & to master; but it also forces me to exercise the other (creative) side of my brain. This doesn’t come naturally to me and I’ve had to train myself to both see and work creatively. This is possibly also why I like the much slower and measured pace of landscape and night photography – I’m allowed much more time to contemplate and consider each and every shot – to perfect it in my mind before I take it, to show you the beauty in the universe as I felt it at that moment I took it.

Some of my other interests include digital photography, digital 360 degree panoramas, Xbox, Xbox 360 and online gaming (I am one of the founders of an Xbox community web site called XboxZone) and home theatre.