Mine, the place to be and I dont mean fish! Title what Title!

Ok, its taken just a little time to do this but I thought that it might be cool for me to eventually join the 21st century and start up the studios blog, so here it is.  Well I hope to put a lot more on this in the months to come and hope that you will enjoy reading the wonderful things that I am going to comment about with you so sit down, get the kettle on and pin back your lugholes for some touching topics for you all to read.

So where to start, as they all say its best to start at the beginning and then proceed directly to the end of the subject.  Bristol a chilly evening, a short sharp cry of a baby in 1956.  Yep you guessed it I got born, well not the most earth shattering or momentus occasion I hear you cry, well actually I don't hear you cry at all cause you are actually reading this and not plugged into my Hifi or something.  

My life started out rather slowly until the age of 8 when my dad and mum thought it would be good to take me on holiday to Switzerland and to record the holiday I was given my first camera, an Ilford 127 roll film camera, yep two settings on it one for black and white and the other for the magical colour.  Well I was starting rather young and wanted to get some great pictures, which I did, the snowball fight at the top of the mountain was well recorded as was every country that we went through to get there.  I had got the bug.

Very soon I was asking for more film, more cameras and every type and shape of book on photography I could check out of the public library.  My interest grew and with it I wanted to know everything and anything about the photographic medium.  Eventually I joined the local camera club, well it was a short car drive away from home which allowed me to con my dad into driving me there and getting a lift home from the members.  Keynsham Photographic Society had a new and rather talented young member.  Very soon I was promoted to the role of slide battle secretary of the club and my skills (Sorry about this pun) DEVELOPED!!

I was still not happy so I thought it a good idea to start my own camera club,  Stockwood Camera Club was founded and very soon was attracting members like flies to a dung heap.   Pretty soon the club had grown to large numbers and we became a member of the WCPF (Western Counties Photographic Federation).  I retired at the age of 14 and was appointed as the clubs president, the fools.

My interest continued and as the years went by I gain more knowledge and more importantly lots more cameras and lenses, the old Zenith EM was a wonderful brick that I took everywhere and very soon with a heavy backpack I was looking for a much lighter set of gear.  It came to me in the shape of the Olympus Trip for carrying around and for more serious work the Olympus OM1.  Superb camera and I still have fond memories of all the films, slide film and negative work that I did over the years. 

Time rolls forward, medium format cameras came and went, film became a thing of the past, digital photography was coming and very soon the cameras and equipment became a simple extension of my photographic skill.  Founding Rowe Photographic and then the studios seemed to fly by as the past seven years have been a blur for me.  I have enjoyed the transition even though I find myself to be somewhat older than when I started I still feel like an 18 year old.  Well on the inside there is a teenager still tying to get out.  Second childhood I hear you cry, rubbish, I still have not got out of my first one yet!

Am I Happy? ...... Of course this is something that I like doing and enjoy, its part of me and will be until the day I pass off this world for the next one. or whatever happens next. 

Well to finish, if you are still reading this I have met many interesting and wonderful people on this voyage, some of which are no longer with us but I look forward to the future with a full measure of hope.  In this I too hope that you have enjoyed this first but by no means last installment.