I'm married to Jackie with a son, Matt (born 1992) and make my living in the financial sector, but my prime spare time interests are music and photography. I support new bands, including through crowdsourcing sites like Sellaband, Pledge Music and Slice The Pie and like to take pictures at live shows. I started my photography as a child in the late 1960s using a Kodak Instamatic 33, then a Halina Paulette Electric and advanced via a Praktica LTL to the Contax 35mm range. I still have most of the equipment now!

I was quite late moving to digital, using a Canon 300DSLR, Canon Powershot digital compact and my son's Nikon D40. I now own an EOS450D with kit short zoom and last December bought a 5D Mark II + 24-105 L F4 with which I am delighted. I just swallowed hard and bought the 16-35 f2.8L and 85mm f1.2L lenses and my next target is a flash system. I have also bought adapters to convert my best Carl Zeiss glass for use on the Canon bodies.

Other than shooting bands in available light I like taking plants, buildings and abstract patterns but intend to get more into posed portraits from now on. I'm an image manipulation novice, mainly using Picasa on a Windows PC to make basic changes, but aim to get into Photoshop and eventually buy an Intel Mac to do the "processing" work.