I suppose I should write something here although I don't know why, nobody will read it. Tell you what, why don't you go look at my pictures instead. If you're feeling really kind you could always leave me a comment or two, who knows, I might even return the favour. Oh, and I'd prefer it if you gave the spangly gifs a miss. And I don't really do Post 1, Comment 100 groups either.

Most of my photos are taken on my wanderings around remote places. A photographic diary of my adventures, but I make no claim to be a proper photographer. I take pictures as I go, I don't go to take picture. I tag them and mostly add them to the map so that I can remember where I've been and when. I can recognise places I've been to 20 years ago, paths I've walked, views I've seen. But I can't for the life of me remember what places are called.

To the 1000 or so very shy people who have added me as a contact without so much as a word: try leaving me some comments and I might add you too, I'm here for the social side of Flickr (NOT THAT IT EXISTS ANY MORE) and communication is a two way process. And if you were made a contact the likelihood of remaining so is minimal if you make no form of contact. Fave and run is no fun, bring on the banter.

A small selection of my Flickr pics are for sale on RedBubble but if you see anything you'd like a print of on here drop me a Flickrmail and I'll put it on RB for you. They do everything from underpants to greetings cards, posters, canvas & framed prints.

Any photo on here is Available for Request to License through Getty Images. If they're still doing that sort of thing that is, these days they just seem to be selling stuff for one cent.

Well, everyone seems to have an endless list of their gear on their profile page so I thought I'd share mine with you. It also serves as an illustration of the evolution of technology as I've been doing this for a while now it seems.

Fast forwarding past various film cameras, I started off my digital career with a Fuji Finepix F440 compact, now sold and gone to a good home. Next was a Fuji S6500fd bridge camera, great but not as good as the real thing (not to mention eating AA batteries for breakfast) so along came a Canon EOS 400D body and a Sigma 10-20mm wide angle lens, shortly followed by a Sigma 17-70mm for general use, then, just for fun, a Nifty Fifty way back when you could get a lens for fifty quid.

After a bit of serious saving up a Canon 100mm Macro lens appeared on the scene, then to extend the range a Sigma 70-300mm APO zoom which converted itself to manual focus only, useless pile of junk! Life moves too fast for manual focus so it got sold and along came a Canon 70-300mm lens to bring far away things nearer. Much better image quality and Image Stabilisation too.

Next on the list was a new compact, a Canon IXUS 95 IS for when I couldn't be bothered carting the DSLR around. Unfortunately this seems to have got more dust inside than a DSLR so doesn't get used any more. Replaced it with a Canon PowerShot SX260 HS which was great for carrying up mountains without the need for a team of Sherpas but unfortunately not very good image quality (no surprises really, but life is a series of compromises) so it now lives in the cupboard of the unloved with the IXUS.

Next solution to not having a team of Sherpas was a Canon EOS M which came with a nifty little 18-55mm lens and an adaptor so I can use all the lenses I got for the 400D. Better quality than the elderly 400D, but a fraction of the weight. (Although I rarely use anything other than the 18-55 on it as the whole thing becomes unbalanced with big lenses on a small body). The auto focus was never great though and after nearly 10 years I sold it as I rarely have enough energy to climb mountains these days with or without a camera.

After many years of neglect I decided the lens collection needed a new lease of life so I bought a Canon EOS 77D to keep them company on special occasions when I can muster enough energy to carry everything. I was so impressed that the EOS M hardly got used so I sold it.

After many years of faithful service (excluding the time the zoom function locked up completely and it had to go back to Sigma) my 17-70mm developed a fault reporting the focal length which stopped it from opening the aperture up so, being unable to face another battle with Sigma repair centre, I retired it and bought myself a Canon 18-135 mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Nano USM to replace it. More zoom and image stabilisation definitely a plus, but the loss of f2.8 was a bit of a blow so I thought I'd get a Canon 24mm f2.8 Lens which weighs next to nothing and is a lot more useful than my Nifty Fifty which is a bit narrow on a crop sensor body even if it does go to a bokehtastic f1.8.

These days I struggle to walk as far as I used to so decided to treat myself to a new body, unfortunately it was only a camera body, the Canon EOS 90D and traded the Canon 70-300mm in for a bigger zoom and resurrect my childhood hobby of bird watching.

Most of my photos are more or less as taken, maybe a quick tweak of the levels or some cropping but that's about it. Sometime I go a bit mad with either Photoshop Elements or The Gimp and have a faff about. Oh, and HDR is the work of the Devil.

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