The 16th May 2007 (my 63rd birthday) was an appropriate day to launch this new website which gathered various articles and reviews written over the years for the consumer magazine market - as well as my old weblog which used to be hosted by the US-based Salon publishing and internet company. My previous freelance magazine and newspaper work spanned more than 30-years as a writer and photographer. I quickly realized that editors had difficulty finding photos to accompany words and vice versa. When they received my packages with interesting articles and a selection of images they were more likely to use this speculative submission because their job was already half done.

Latest: 27th August - added new pages on "Citrus Fruit Wrappers"
in the 20 European Trees section. An odd subject, I know, but they are the paper packaging for the fruits from mainly European trees.

Digital is hot... but using film is really cool!
My submissions of articles and images for the internet started late because of a reluctance to adopt digital as a way of working. Having shot with film in sizes from 35mm, through 120 roll to 4x5, 5x7 and 8x10 inch large formats and printed all my own monochrome work in traditional darkrooms - as well as processing all of my color films - I found it difficult to adopt to the digital way of working and post-processing on an Apple Mac after so many years of days and nights in a darkroom with my fingers in trays of chemistry. For seven years during this period I published and edited “Darkroom User” - a specialist photography magazine (later retitled “Camera & Darkroom”) which kept me in the darkroom literally day and night!

However, in continuing my association with the Nikon system I went digital in 2006 with a Nikon D200... choosing that particular model because with it I was able to use all my older, but still very good, manual lenses. In fact I have used so many Nikkors over the years (borrowing several when I was a regular guest speaker for the Nikon Club and then a Nikon Professional Services member) that my first thoughts for this new “20/20 Visions” site was to have a listing just for Nikon optics... although narrowing those I have used and owned to just 20 examples was more difficult.

However, there will be twenty categories each with twenty subjects...
From this start I decided to write about and illustrate many other favorite subjects... making a list of twenty categories each with twenty subjects... eventually making four hundred articles in all. This is not such a tall order because of the variety of subjects I have covered in the past. Initially there will be sections from my “Art Classes” to “Wiltshire”... an A-to-W because I have no X, Y or Z categories to round off the alphabet!

There will be a 50/50 split between photography and everyday subjects, with some pages being updated as the subject changes with the seasons... trees, for example, may eventually have four separate entries each as I observe and record their visual changes throughout the four seasons... time will tell.

Other updates may happen when a technology or practice changes... darkroom work may see a resurgence with new chemistry being formulated, spin-off papers from the ink-jet industry and traditional films being reintroduced (Ilford have just announced the return of their near-IR film SFX200... so those who predicted the death of film were overstating the obvious advantages of digital).

About me...
I have written all the articles and reviews here from the "self-taught photographer and monochrome printer" angle. In 1974, at the age of 30, I took a leap of faith into the tough professional world of photography - but even before that, on my graduation day in 1967 at The Regional College of Art, Manchester, I realized, rather late in my studies, that I wanted to be a photographer, not the interior designer I had trained to be.

So I bought into the Nikon system with a cheap, un-metered, manual Nikkormat FS body and one lens, a 135mm telephoto. From that beginning I learned how to select an image through the camera’s viewfinder, process and print film, and enter photo competitions. Winning a bag-full of Nikon bodies and Nikkor lenses, almost immediately, was instrumental in steering me through a career change from a secure well-paid production design job with Granada TV to a life as a freelance photographer where I quickly learned that in the eyes of any commissioning features editor, agency art director or picture library manager,"You were only as good as the last job you did for them!"

But I feel that I survived to tell the tale... many of which will be written up and illustrated here. Oh yes, there's no charge for browsing through the many pages here, but if you feel the trip was worth it and that you learned or appreciated something new, a small donation would be much appreciated... and for which my very ill wife (20 years of MS) and I would truly thank you.