We live in the UK and have been at Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, since 1987. We are both now retired and are able to enjoy spending much of our time travelling finding subjects to indulging our shared interest in photography. We have been camping in Europe for over 25 years, originally in a tent but, for the last 20 years with a caravan. We both appreciate the independence that this type of travel affords. Occasionally, though, we get a little more adventurous and go to further flung destinations, as I hope you will see from our photograph albums.

In addition to travel, we share several other interests including food, drinking, wildlife, drinking, walking, drinking and cycling.

John

picture of John Here's John on a blisteringly hot day (38°C/100°F) in Sri Satchanalai, Thailand, giving the ol' factor 30 head polish something of a work out while photographing the Thai flag. The resulting picture can be seen here.

John spent his entire career in the computer software industry where he managed to remain a technician until October 2005 when redundancy came knocking (age 52 - par for the course). Much of this time was spent working on assigments in the United States where we made and still have many friends. Having begun life as an IBM assembler language programmer, he had latterly been enjoying Web application development using Java (both the programming language and the coffee). See, you can teach an old dog new tricks.

He still enjoys dabbling with internet technologies, hence this web site, and can no longer write very legibly without a keyboard. Having been planning (or should that be hoping for?) early retirement, work giving up on him was the spur that we needed to bite the bullet and go for it.

Current camera equipment:

  • Canon EOS 40D SLR camera (finally having gone digital in May, 2008)
  • Canon 10-22mm zoom lens
  • Canon 17-85mm IS zoom lens
  • Canon 75-300mm IS zoom lens
  • Canon Speedlite 420EX flash (occasionally)
  • Manfrotto Carbon One 441 tripod
  • Manfrotto Carbon One 449 monopod
  • Close focus rings (Jessops, you cheapskate!)
  • Filters: UV haze (Hama & Hoya), Circular Polarizers (Hoya), ND2, ND4 and ND8 solid & graduated (Cokin)

Carol

picture of Carol Carol is easily distinguished by being smaller, better looking and having a mass of naturally curly hair. Here she is obviously enjoying herself on a coastal path walk at Kynance Cove during our 2006 Southwest trip to Somerset, Cornwall and Devon.

Carol also spent her career in the computer industry where, after going through the usual application programming route into middle management, she eventually made her way into the world of network security. As with all things, she attacked this with gusto but, being spurred on by work giving up on John, decided to go for the life of leisure and has recently taken to retirement like the proverbial duck to water.

When at home, she now spends her Wednesdays doing volunteer work for the Greensand Trust helping to preserve our local environment. This largely seems to be an excuse to slash scrub and build bonfires, though wading in ponds also seems quite prominent.

Current camera equipment:

  • Canon EOS 400D SLR camera (having recently taken the plunge into digital technology)
  • Canon 17-85mm IS zoom lens
  • Canon 70-300mm IS zoom lens
  • Manfrotto Carbon One 440 tripod (which John is using above to photograph the Thai flag)
  • Filters: UV haze (Hama), Circular Polarizers (Hoya), ND2, ND4 and ND8 Graduated (Cokin)