2008 - I have a habit of waffling when it comes to typing, but it is difficult to keep things brief when talking about Pc_Stumpy. It was only fairly recently that I happened to show Stumpy my Flickr page, and discover that we had a mutual love of photography. Albeit that my idea of photography was happy snapping, ba… Read more

2008 - I have a habit of waffling when it comes to typing, but it is difficult to keep things brief when talking about Pc_Stumpy. It was only fairly recently that I happened to show Stumpy my Flickr page, and discover that we had a mutual love of photography. Albeit that my idea of photography was happy snapping, badly, with a point and shoot digital camera and His was more of a film Art form. Over the last year that we have been going out shooting together, Stumpy has been patiently talking me through the terminology, correcting my mistakes and frequently bashing His head against solid things as I failed to grasp the simplest of concepts, jumping up and down in a ‘Eureka style’ as I finally understood something, and generally forcing me to slow down, use a tripod and think more about what I am doing. Thankfully His patience appears endless and He still battles on in helping me to improve my photos and I am grateful for all of His help, company, friendship and support. Stumpy’s work is of a fantastically high calibre, He is a complete perfectionist and will take however long necessary to ensure the perfect shot is taken. If the attainment of the perfect shot takes two hours of standing in below freezing temperatures waiting for the sun to rise, after getting up in the very early hours of the morning, then that is exactly what He does! (usually with me tagging along somewhere behind Him, moaning). The effort He puts in always pays off when the negative is eventually revealed. Sadly though the scanning process often degrades the image to a fraction of the quality seen on the negative and it is always a disappointment to me, that people cannot see the shot as it was taken or the work, blood, sweat and tears that went into producing it. He is my mentor and inspiration... and a damn good friend too! :) 2011 - Time for an update to the testimonial as lots has changed in 3 years, the fact Stumpy remains my mentor, inspiration and damn good friend is unchanged, I am thankful that his patience over the years seems to be somewhat endless as I am still challenged by many of the concepts of good photography but he is still by my side, helping, advising and supporting and sometimes chuckling when I am falling down hills on my derriere. Stumpy has at last been dragged (somewhat kicking and screaming at times) into the 21st century and has converted to a digital camera (or 3), which has proved a godsend to his workflow, no longer are his images degraded in the scanning process and you can see them exactly as he did when he took them. He has also embraced Photoshop and NX2, much to my irritation he is catching on to this quickly and is fast becoming better at post processing than me, not that I would tell him that ! He of course uses this very sparingly though, doing only a minimal amount to his images to maintain the integrity of the scene. Shooting with Stumpy is always an absolute pleasure, and makes photography all the more enjoyable for me. I look forward to many more photo trips with him and updating the testimonial again in another 3 years.