Oh dear: you’re actually reading my profile. Well that was unexpected…

I was born shortly after my father gave me a vintage Leica G porthole camera made in the 1940s. Not a bad place to start photography – a manual viewfinder camera with rangefinder focusing and little else. I developed slowly from there, though with the arrival of digital photography of everything suddenly clicked and I developed more quickly...✝

I tend to like abstracts and colour, geometry, pattern and repetition in compositions. Very left-brain stuff. I love ideas though and I appreciate images that give me a new perspective: there is a world of discovery in macros, and nature crafts beautiful art wherever you look for it.

When I capture images more or less any subject goes, as Tigger would say. I tend to avoid doing portraits (I’m not extroverted enough) and landscapes (it is a crowded genre but difficult to do well with a limited time budget).

In truth I feel I’m more of a photo consumer than an image creator — I really enjoy looking at other people’s work. That’s in part because it takes less time to admire a photograph than to create one of course, but it’s also because I enjoy fresh ideas and new perspectives.

My background is quite analytical: physics and IT with a bit of corporate marketing thrown in. As a result, I long to get away from the logical and rational and encourage the creative seedling that I am convinced lurks somewhere within. Whether it’s wise to try growing your creative seedling in a forest of sequoias like Flickr is quite another matter...

By inclination I am an encourager, an optimist and someone who likes making people smile (that’s a warning of course!). I try not to take myself, or photography, too seriously.

I enjoy fresh ideas and learning almost to the point of not lingering to master anything really – oops. I really enjoy encouraging people to discover and develop their own talents and try new things. That’s why I usually say how I have produced my images: just in case someone finds it useful, gets an idea they can improve on, or is encouraged just to attempt something different.

I value people and relationships so I enjoy chatting with friends that I have made here. I’m from Gloucestershire, UK, but I particularly like getting to know folk from other nations.

Thanks for dropping by. Do get in touch if you have any questions about how I did things, or anything else for that matter. If you should need any of my images for any reason I’ll do my best to hide my astonishment: just ask me and I shall give you a personal licence.

Keep smiling,

Peter

✝Sorry about the puns. The first one was accidental, honest :)

I’m just a wildflower picked from the plains of Sharon,

a lotus blossom from the valley pools.