King Penguins South Georgia 2010

MY 50 YEAR JOURNEY IN PHOTOGRAPHY

I had a mild interest in photography at school, though did not pursue it.  I gradually formed a slide collection. At first I used Kodachrome (a little blue), then Agfa (slightly red), but finally Fujichrome. This had excellent colour saturation.  I now have many thousands of slides. 

My first camera was a Praktika, which I bought  from a friend. In  about 1985 I joined the Royal Photographic Society. In 1989 I obtained the licentiateship (LRPS) from a set of slides.  I owned several Canon cameras, from an AE1P to a Canon EOS5D 

My long distance travelling started in 1988, when we visited Hong Kong, Thailand and Bali. In Bali I took a shot which really got me into serious photography. A woman came down to the beach with several baskets balanced on her head, got on a bicycle and rode off.  I had never seen anything like that before.

In 1994 I was a member of the British Mount Everest Medical expedition, and have been lucky enough to visit the Everest region twice.

In 2001 digital photography arrived, the biggest change since slide film was invented in 1935. This was an entirely new concept, difficult to grasp, and for two or three years many people, including me, used both. So some of my journeys are on both. Gradually film died out, despite diehards insisting for several years that film was better. I took over as Chairman of an RPS digital group based in Bracknell. I joined Tandridge Photographic Society in 2005, and I  have been a member for 18 years. 

 In 2008 I did a circumnavigation of Spitzbergen. I took many pictures, and produced prints  from which I was awarded the distinction of being an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society (ARPS). In 2010 I visited the Falklands, South Georgia, and Antarctica. Since then it has been Ethiopia, Srilanka, Burma, Yellowstone in winter, Mongolia, Japan and Uzbekistan. My aim in travel photography is to give viewers an essence of the place.

In 2011 I started judging and lecturing for Surrey Photographic Association and have been doing this ever since. All my  lectures are done for one of my two charities, The Himalayan Trust, and the Galapagos Conservation Trust, in alternate years. 

Gradually my photography gear became too heavy, and in 2018 I visited Japan with a micro four thirds system, an Olympus OMD, and three lenses. This is much lighter, and of the same quality for travel photography.  In undeveloped countries, people assume that large cameras are used professionally, and they are wary. With a small camera people do not bother.

I hope to give you a feeling of what it is like to stand in the Gobi Desert, or in remote South Georgia.

John Nathan.  ARPS.  

Scotland- 2018