My name is Paul Fuller and I currently live in Redditch, just south of Birmingham.

 

Born in Hove in July 1983, just outside Brighton, my younger years we spent travelling around the UK taking us to wherever my father’s job required him to be (from Peacehaven we moved to Codsall where my brother was born, to Cardiff, to Sussex, to Cheltenham, back to Cardiff where I moved into my own home and gained my independence, to Derby and finally Redditch). All this moving about and meeting new people and making new friends may be because of this that my interest in travel has grown.

 

In 1998, whilst living in Cheltenham, I joined the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway and this is where my interest in railways first started (that I can remember, although my Grandmother recalls many a time when she used to take me to the Bluebell Railway which I was a small child, so maybe the interest was instilled in me subconsciously from then?!). Even through to this day I am still involved with the line, having worked my way up to much more managerial positions within both the Permanent Way department (where my main interest lies) and to a wider scope such as Diesel Locomotive Driver, Duty Operations Officer and for four years, Head of Diesel Department.

 

After leaving school in 1999 with 4 ‘A’ and 6 ‘B’ GCSE grades, I studied for ‘A’ Levels in Biology, Physics and Psychology (not having a clue where this was going to leave me), I applied for a job with Wales & West Trains (as-was, now Arriva Trains Wales) as Trainee Train Planner in Cardiff. I was successful in being offered the position and started on the 24th September 2001. After only four months as a ‘trainee’, I landed the permanent position of Train Planner. This was work which I enjoyed as it had a lot of variety and was very much a mentally-challenging role (learning routes, junctions, headways, block sections etc). My knowledge of railways picked up on my volunteering hobby assisted greatly with this.

Wales and West became Wales and Borders which in turn became Arriva Trains Wales – same job, same desk, eight years, three company names!

 

Working on the ‘real’ railway had its bonuses in other ways of course; free and reduced rate travel meant evenings and weekends could be spent travelling around all sorts of weird and wonderful places on the railway network and combining that with my interest of photography was very interesting. Living in the South Wales ‘valleys’, Class 37s were a staple diet initially but I would turn my interest to almost anything that was large and loud!

 

In 2008, a colleague on the GWR who owns his own heavy haulage business approached me with a proposition to start a railway branch of his business. A challenge duly accepted so it was on my 25th birthday I handed in my notice to Arriva and started with Moveright in the August. A few months were then spent setting up the new railway business, registering a company name, designing a logo and website before fully launching Railway Support Services in March 2009. Since then, I have been very proud to help grow the business expanding the tamping, trackwork and most predominantly, the re-railing and heavy lifting service, of which we very rapidly became a major supplier to the railway industry.

 

After Covid hit, I felt I wanted a slight change in direction in terms of my career, mainly because of my young family. Things couldn't have worked out better in terms of timing, as the GWSR were recruiting for a Track Maintenance Manager. Having been a volunteer with them since '98, I just knew I had to apply... and that's where I now work! Absolutely loving it!

 

With regards to my photography, I can’t recall a time when I wasn’t interested. My first vivid memory of having a film camera is when we went on a family holiday to Disneyland Paris – I must have been about 12. Armed with my “top of the range” camera - or so I was led to believe at the time, simply because it had a LCD display on the top showing how many photos had been taken, I happily snapped away. This however, was also my first big disappointment with photography. When the frame counter started passing 39 for a 24-frame film, it was obvious what had happened... the film was not attached to the spool properly; a holiday ruined from a photography point of view as I lost the pictures of me with Goofy!

 

In my early 20s, my father gave me his old camera, a Practika BC1 – what I always regard as my first ‘proper’ camera and after running a few rolls of print film through to get the feel of it, what better way to properly learn photography than by using slide/transparency film. Having very little forgiveness (in the fact that what you shoot at the settings you choose is what gets developed unlike print film which can be ‘tinkered’ with to some extent), many a lesson was learnt, including the dreaded night shots (using the bracketing technique) and perfecting the picture is what it was all about.

 

In 2005 I took the plunge and joined the digital revolution albeit only in a minor way. I bought myself a pocket digital camera from Jessops in Cardiff – an Olympus C60-Z - which served me well but my priority was always with my trusty Practika steed. Several thousand slide developments later (in the region of 4,300 to be precise!), it wasn’t until I invested in a slightly more upmarket Panasonic TZ-5 pocket digital camera in 2009 that I started taking digital photography seriously. From this I upgraded to a TZ-7 and finally, still carried round with me now, is my back-up TZ-20.

 

2011 saw me take the plunge and invested in my Canon 60D with twin lens kit. Setting me back the best part of a month’s wages, it was the best investment made to date. Having spent a small fortune, my mindset was to make the most of the equipment I had. Anything from local scenes to landscape and family shots to weather to anything ‘odd and unusual’ – I try and take it all in.

 

In 2013, I joined the World Photography Organisation with a view of showcasing some of my best images. In addition, towards the end of the year Canon bought out their EOS 70D and having read the reviews, I simply wanted one to try and constantly improve my skills. After a couple of months of hard work and savings, I bought it for myself as a Christmas present (and to wind my other half up, I wrapped it up and gave it to me as a present from our dog!). I am now in the process of using this camera to bring you better quality images from my travels and interests, so please enjoy.

 

My passion for travel also has long roots in my blood. My first memory of flight was with my father on a Monarch flight to Lanzarote. I distinctly remember the headphones in their roll-up case. Ever since then (and even more so since I’ve had my independence), I have had a passion for travelling the world. I have been lucky enough to have travelled most of the UK with my work as well as some locations in the USA and eastern Canada but my own travels have taken me as far afield as Bali and Singapore to western Canada and most of Europe. However, there are still many many places yet to visit and I look forward to the next trip away, not forgetting the camera of course!

 

Anyway, hope you enjoyed reading a little bit about my history and my interests and I would relish the opportunity to meet with any interested persons who share the same interests and experiences to share their tales with. My digital efforts are all on this Flickr website now and I hope the pictures provide many hours of interest to you.

 

Paul Fuller