It's 49 years since I bought the first camera which helped me open my eyes to the possibilities of photography - an Olympus OM-1. My photographic interests broadened after joining Huddersfield Camera Circle in 1996 and I still find being part of a photo society an enjoyable way of keeping in touch with constantly changing techniques and meeting people with whom to share my interests. I was a founder member of the Huddersfield Photo-Imaging Club and I'm pleased to say we are thriving with around 60 members.

In 2006 after three decades of taking slides and two of using a traditional black and white darkroom, I bit the bullet and bought a digital camera. This too was an Olympus - an E-500. It had its limitations and I have since then used an E-620 before moving to Micro Four-Thirds with my Olympus EM5 mark II. I’ve also got a compact XZ-1 which is handy to carry around at all times. I feel that life is too short to get to understand the intricacies of Photoshop but instead find Adobe Lightroom a good tool for storing and sorting image files and making adjustments to images before presenting them. More recently the ON1RAW plug-in has got me dabbling in filters to bring out aspects that I feel complement the original capture. In so doing I try and style the finished image or print to bring out what was in my mind’s eye when I took the picture.

You can see from my Albums that I enjoy photographing people in their environment, capturing lowlight subjects, landscapes, architecture, canals and railways. Travel photography is also an area which I enjoy. I'm a keen printer, have a love-hate relationship with my Epson R3000, and find it particularly pleasing when the finished article looks and feel how I want it to show the image I captured.

Alan Stopher