I used to be a professional photographer with my own studio; lights, backdrops, portraits, weddings and even ran my own School of Photography. This all fuelled my passion for B&W landscape and nature work and exhibiting accordingly. All in the days of film (thousands of negs), print, chemicals and colour slides (thousands of cs). I then died and went to heaven!
Well not quite. I then returned to remote practice as a health professional, with years spent in areas like Central Australia, the Kimberley, SW WA, the Christmas and Cocos Keeling Islands, Kangaroo Island and now have retired to the Riverland of SA aboard a houseboat, surrounded by birdlife.
To say the past 20 yrs, from a digital perspective, has passed me by, would be an understatement. Again not quite, having owned a couple of digital Pentax cameras. But, as with film, what I composed through the viewfinder was what I filed, albeit with some minor cropping. Post processing seemed false, manipulative, even conniving with reality a distant dream.
I then joined Birdlife Australia/BLP submitted some images for assessment and received a thorough and comprehensive response from Simon Pelling. Oh Simon you have embarked me on a journey and not one that will endear you to my wife, my superannuation and my time...but boy am I going to enjoy myself.
So thats me.
PS I've spent the past two days ploughing through BLP newsletters, stunning images, cameras, lenses and even new words, 'bokeh?' Please be gentle with me and I look forward to a long and fruitful shared passion for birds. Now to get my head around 'post-processing'.

Hi Nigel,

Welcome to BirdLife Photography.

Great to hear that Simon has been helping you and that you have already found many of the resources on our website.

I also recommend you take a look at our archive of Zoom events. Future event dates will be communicated via our e-News.

Looking forward to seeing your images in our galleries.

Best regards,
Craig

Hi Craig
Many thanks for the welcome.
Nigel

Welcome Nigel and what a fascinating past you have had (how was heaven by the way?). As for film versus digital, I grew up with film and have been a keen amateur since my early school days including a few exhibitions and winning a few competitions here and there. When I retired, I started on my digital journey and have to admit that, other than the basics of any photography (composition, light and visual impact), handling a digital image requires a different mindset - as Simon seems to have convinced you. I was ignorant of this at the start and made a lot of mistakes but got great help from people at BLP, particularly Ian Wilson. I now feel I'm making progress after 9 years. The old adage that "cameras don't lie" is not really true and the 'falsehoods' introduced by a camera is the reason we do digital post-processing. Without going in to great detail, a camera records an image in a way our own vision doesn't. Our eye scans a scene, constantly adjusting to light levels and distance and concentrates on some things over others. The aim of processing is to bring the instantaneous record of an entire scene to one closer to how our vision system might have scanned and recorded it in our memory. This involves fixing blown highlights and clipped shadows, enhancing mid-tone contrast on key parts (typically the subject) and de-emphasising distractions that our vision may skip over. It also involves removing some artefacts introduced by the equipment such as digital noise, lens abberations and so on. At some point, you may want to look at the videos I made on post-processing with Canon's RAW processor (DPP) and Photoshop Elements. Even if you aren't using these products, the strategy should be similar regardless.

I'm sure you'll have fun on your journey and be sure to reach out here on the forum or by making contact with other photographers posting on BLP (use the 'Contact Photographer' button that is typically visible when an image is opened).

Many thanks for the positive advice and i'm quickly realising the different 'mindset' required. Back into the 'pit' of what camera and lens to buy.

Loved: died and went to heaven. Great how we can transform our occupations. I'm a newbie to bird photography, and just joined BLP. Beautiful image you shared in your post. Curious to know what bird is that?