Mr 1D

I go to a local camera club when I am home. It's mainly for the social aspect as wanting to compete or anything. I have entered just the one compitition since I joined 15 months ago, and that was just some small prints; I just don't have to time to mess around with printers and mounting and all that jazz.

I like to think that my pictures are OK, and that my cameras are fine enough for a hobbyist level photographer like me. I concentrate on composition and the such, and try my best to think about exposure, but do mess around with Photoshop to get the results I want. That means I crop very few of my pictures, as I have thought about what I want from a particular shot, and all the other stuff that goes through a photographer's head when he gets behind the viewfinder.

There are many types of photographer, and the one I am concerned with is always male. There's one at the club, he bought his first DSLR and it's a Canon Eos 1D, a professional camera all with L Series lenses and he talks of resolutiona and focusing accuracy and all that techno babble that his ilk love.

But when it comes to compititions, he falls flat on his face of course. Even worse when he and a friend enter shots of a shared picture taking trip and his friend gets the higher marks and Mr 1D quietly fumes.

He openly admited last year he knew little of photography, but loved what he was doing, although he understood little of the art of composition and other such things.

He sees photography as a science, where it all comes down to megapixels and resolution and being able to read a sign from oh so far away, when in truth it's an art.

I can't explain why this picture works or that doesn't or why I took a shot that way not the other; I just did because it looks right, and in the end it's what I am happy with that counts. I have been in clubs and found myself taking shots that I hated but carried on because I knew they would score high in compititions; not any more.

The club meetings take place in licenced premises, and the thought of a couple of pints of real ale and a good laugh with a couple of other like minded people keeps me going.

All the while, Mr 1D lives in our world but fails to understand most of it. Oh well