Hobby

As you might have gathered by now, I really like taking pictures. In the last years, I've used selected photos for calendars which I give to a handful of people. This is my 2010 selection:

January to June

July - December

Now I don't delude myself that I am a brilliant photographer or that the quality of my photos is extraordinary, but I simply love taking photos and I do think I have an eye for detail (hence my love for close-ups).

I have enjoyed taking pictures since I was a child, because my Dad took really good pictures and sometimes let me help develop black and white prints at home. When we were on a family holiday in Ireland when I was six years old, I pretended to take pictures with the case of Dad's camera and mimicked him whenever he got out of the car to capture something.

I can't remember how old I was when I got my first camera, but I was in my teens when I got a proper SLR. I was really proud and experimented a lot with it. What really annoyed me though was the size of the camera and the way you could not really be as spontaneous with it as I would have liked. I've been taking photos with small compact cameras ever since.

Sure, it's a compromise and the quality will never get near that of a "proper" camera with expensive lenses and zooms, but for me it's important to be able to have a camera with me at all time (you never know!) and be able to take a picture before the subject or object disappears. I also like the challenge of achieving decent photos with an average camera and although they are famous for watches rather than cameras, I really like the Casio brand and am now using the third one in a row (Exilim EX-H10). By the way, I recently bought a stylish Burberry case for it, ahem.