Photographer of the Month: Charles Titcombe

How did I get into photography?

When I sat down to write this piece, I had to reflect on the journey I had taken through a photographic life of over 60 years. 

Like many amateur photographers, I started my journey with a Kodak Brownie Box Camera in the late fifties on family holidays. Later on, as a student architect, the camera was an essential tool for recording the work of others who shaped the built environment using sturdy East German SLR’s and after qualification, recording the work of what I and colleagues had designed and built using a variety of film formats. Sometimes this meant using a 5×4 sheet film camera with moving back and front to correct perspective and squinting at an inverted image on the ground glass back of the camera whilst shrouded in a blackout cloth. Hardly instant photography!!

Photography was an expensive pastime if you printed everything that you shot and that is why I used 35mm colour slides for the majority of my photography outside work. Even so as there were only 36 exposures on a roll of film, you had to be sparing with the shots you took and inevitably, the genre was mostly record shots of people and places.

Digital photography changed everything but not instantly. An interest in historic motor racing proved to me that the digital compact camera was not the way to capture fast movement and so I became the owner of an elderly Canon EOS 20D, an early DSLR. This camera released me from the constraints of film and print and allowed experimentation. I do not have a specialist genre. I am an opportunistic photographer seeking to capture people, wildlife and movement be it natural or mechanical.

In recent years I have progressed to more sophisticated DSLR’s and the journey continues. The possibilities are endless if you find the inspiration and being part of a photographic club helps. The images below have been part of my journey.