Peter H Randall

My photographic Journey

As a youngster I was fascinated by camera’s. At about the age of 10 years I was bought a Ilford film camera which I proceeded to capture images as and when film was available, not very often because it was expensive at the time.

While at school in the early seventies I was studying Art with a view to going to University. I abandoned my plans for an opportunity in press photography, however the business was struggling within a couple of years and I was made redundant after three years. This gave me some basic ground work after which I continued with photography as a hobby, photographing family & friends. Between 1980 to 1985 I had my own darkroom processing both colour & B&W film. Printing my own photographs. I liked Kodak products for colour and Ilford for B&W. I often though about joining a photographic club but family life was busy, never did get round to it.

I especially liked photographing my family as they grew up. When we had our second son in 1986. I bought a Canon (camcorder) and developed a liking for amateur video work. At the time I had a Commodore Amiga computer which at that time had the best graphics so I indulged in Video editing adding titles and cross over fades.

During the 1990’s I started building my own computers and this developed into paths crossing with video work. Early digitisation of video. Like many things the early days were painful LOL. I remember video capture cards and hard drives struggling to keep pace with the necessary speed to capture. Setting up the software options in those days was a night mare because software was definitely not user friendly.

Looking back I think I jumped ship from film photography to Digital too early. Looking back those early Digital images were not Pretty. But the appeal of the concept was too enchanting. 1996 was the beginning of my Digital Photographic Journey.

Despite my initial hiccups with Digital photography, I was definitely sold. Being able to transfer digitised images to your computer. The possibilities of the digital Darkroom and beyond.

I joined the PhotoChallenge group in April 2014, and Ive been learning ever since. Joining the group helped me turn the tap back on allowing my creativity to flow again. I found myself anticipating each weekly challenge. I was motivated by discussions, ideas and techniques presented within the group. Constructive Criticism was always very useful because sometimes we can get lost on the journey. However although it’s really good to know the rules it’s so much fun to break them.