I WAS GIVEN a Baby Brownie when I was ten, when our family travelled to England for a year in 1951.
Then at high school a local professional taught our camera club members how to develop films and enlarge prints,
and I progressed to using my father’s folding Kodak and then his 35mm rangefinder camera.
But after leaving school I just took family and holiday photos, processed at a pharmacy, until 1975.
Then I saw what my much younger brother was doing in a high school club, and decided to buy an SLR and set up a home darkroom.
A work colleague introduced me to Lower Hutt Photographic Society in 1976, and then I really took off ลาวสามัคคี.
I started entering their competitions, especially the set subjects, which extended my interests and skills.
I also worked through the reading lists for the photographic course at Ilam School of Fine Arts at Canterbury University; it focused more on photographers’ works Alison Viskovic FPSNZ
and ideas than on technical aspects. (I now have five large shelves of books on photography and photographers.)
From 1977 I started entering salons – Wanganui, Tokoroa, Dunedin
and the PSNZ National – producing mainly B&W prints but some colour slides Alison Viskovic FPSNZ.
My interest in doing documentary projects and sets of images grew; the Levin Multiples Salon was good for that.
I joined PhotoForum Wellington in 1978; it gave me other points of view to consider.
In 1983 my image Sarona (right) was the top B&W print in the PSNZ National, and in 1984 it was accepted for a Photoforum exhibition in the National Gallery. It was nice to have it accepted in both spheres.
In 1985 I gained APSNZ with a set of B&W prints. I also showed images in PhotoForum group exhibitions in Wellington in the 1980s, and wrote a number of articles for NZ Camera (it was a magazine then).
A set I produced of a 1981 rugby tour protest incident was printed in both NZ Camera and the Australian equivalent journal.
In 1981 I joined Wellington Polytechnic in a staff education role that included supervising the teaching resources centre, using some of my photographic skills in different ways.
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