I’m one of those infuriating retired people with too much time on their hands let loose with a camera.
I have been taking pictures for over fifty years with a variety of equipment, starting with my Brownie Starmite which I got as a gift for my 10th birthday, right through a number of film cameras ranging from my Kodak Pocket Instamatic, my chunky Russian Zenit E and through to my first decent SLR – my Canon EOS600. I’ve since had a number of digital cameras – mainly Nikon and currently pack a Nikon Z5ii and an iphone 17 Pro which is almost rivalling the Nikon for image quality and certainly beats it for convenience as the camera I always have with me – especially with the third party Fjorden grip.
I’ve also dabbled in darkrooms through the years – developing and printing my own film. Painstakingly enlarging, dodging and burning and making multiple versions to achieve what’s possible these days with just a tweak of a slider.
My career in the production side of publishing involved me with a number of professional photographers and getting their images to appear as they wanted in their books. I even had a period as an amateur sports photographer myself freezing on the touchline of a number of lower league football teams as a cheap way of getting images for a number of football yearbooks my company published.
But it was only with the arrival of digital cameras — and the removal of the cost constraint of film and the liberation of being able to experiment and shoot as many pics as I wanted and easily edit them — that I’ve been able to amass images in any volume and begin to explore what my style actually is and how it’s evolved over the years.
I’m not one for wandering around my hometown taking moody shots of the local bridge or looking for secret corners — my camera tends to come out when I’m away from home. I seem to photograph almost exclusively when I travel somewhere. Looking back through my folder structure – all organised by place: wherever I happened to be visiting at the time.
But while I take a lot of pictures while travelling, but I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a travel photographer. Up until recently I was a member of the RPS Travel Group, and I attended their annual conference last year. I met many people who identify as travel photographers, but I came away still not entirely sure what that means — other than perhaps seeking out a secluded tribe or an obscure religious or craft practice and bringing the pictures home – which, as far as I’m concerned, could just as easily be holiday snaps. They keep banging on about capturing a “sense of place” as if one shot can encapsulate a feel for a destination.
I’ve written a Substack piece examining exactly this question:(https://robkendrew367435.substack.com/p/some-musings-on-travel-photography) — when are your images photography, and when are they just holiday snaps? My conclusion was that whatever you do with your iPhone is just as valid as what you do with a tripod, a set of filters, and a beautiful Gothic vaulted arch.
I also enjoy night photography – there’s something quite zen about shooting images in the still of the night or during Blue Hour. I have a portfolio site dedicated to my night images here: quietnightlens.com