Welcome to the first entry on my new blog.

As you would expect, I am completely at a loss as to what to write, and considering that my brain usually works at 200 mph I guess this is a first for me.

I suppose I had better start with a little about me... Born in Bradford, England I was raised by a pack of feral chickens in a disused nuclear reactor.... OK, sorry, just born in Bradford!

I have been a train driver for the last 11 years, and I have been making a second living from my photography work for a while now too.  This this blog is simply somewhere for me to write down some thoughts, and if you are daft enough to be reading them then thanks, but please leave comments for me. If you're gonna pop by... at least say "hi".

Now listen very carefully.... I will talk about photography all day long but please know this, I WILL NOT TALK ABOUT TRAINS!!!

Sorry, but I just wanted to be clear on that... If you have ever met a trainspotter you will know exactly what I mean. They are all a bunch of weird nice people but we don't share the same interests.

I have just been out in the garden taking some photos of random bits of greenery to use as stock photos. When I say stock photos that's just general crap that I keep stored on the hard drive in case I ever happen to need a picture of a twig on a particular image (note to self: Clear a load of crap off computer) and I got into a discussion with a neighbour who is quite an accomplished photographer himself..... The jist of the discussion was that nature is flawed, and sometimes nasty, and should we just photograph the pretty stuff and edit out the "brown" bits, or should we create images that reflect the true nature of... errr... nature?

EG:

If a lady has a bit of a stubble should I clone it out in photoshop?

If a pretty flower has got a bit of a brown leaf do I pull the offending leaf off, or capture nature as it is, brown leaf included?

If a tree falls over in the woods does the pope shit on it? (ermmm sorry...)

If you are looking for me to answer these questions or want to know how the discussion ended I am afraid I am going to disappoint you because (a:) decisions about what to leave in and out of an image are made at the time of taking or during the editing process, and each case needs careful consideration and (b:) the discussion ended about three minutes in because we got distracted by bacon!

So heres some of the pictures I took instead... (if you are going to look, click on the pictures to open them to full size)

So I have waffled on now for long enough.... I'm off to make chilli for dinner and get ready to watch Doctor Who..... I can see that you are bowled over by my relentless rock and roll lifestyle already.