My interest in photography began in the late 70′s at college, while tinkering with Zenit and Practika SLRs.
By the mid 80′s, I had studied photography through various part time courses, invested in an array of Olympus equipment and set up a studio and darkroom.
I thoroughly enjoyed learning the medium through wedding, portraiture, still life and landscape photography. I also developed my own film and spent hours creating B&W / Cibachrome prints using Durst enlargers.
My interest in photography continued up until 1990, when it was put on hold to develop my Engineering Management career, get an MBA and raise a family.
In 2000, I bought my first digicam and started using image editing software in earnest. I was already familiar with Adobe and AutoCAD products as I had spent most of the nineties working in Engineering Design. A couple of digicams later and the want for a digital SLR beckoned.
I decided to sell all of my Olympus equipment in the autumn of 2004 to fund the new Canon EOS 20D. This revolutionised photography for me and re-kindled my passion for this exciting new medium.
Within a couple of months I became fascinated with many aspects of digital photography and during October 2004 I started EOSpix.com, a non-commercial website aimed at developing a community for like-minded EOS digital camera enthusiasts.
Two years on and EOSpix.com had ~2000 members, regular challenge competitions, an active forum and 100′s of user image galleries.
During 2005, I started creating custom ICC profiles for other Canon digital photographers and spent countless hours learning the art of colour management.
Selling images and custom ICC colour profiles commercially helped kick-start my business, hence the formation of EOS-Images.com.
Unfortunately in July 2006, EOSpix.com was forced to move host and so I used the opportunity to give it a facelift. The new look struggled to re-ignite member enthusiasm and dual site administration was eating into to my spare time, as I had been offered a role as a moderator at OpenPhotographyForums.
So in February 2007, I decided to merge site content and concentrate more time on EOS-Images.com, while gaining a Licentiate Accreditation with the Royal Photographic Society.
During mid 2007, I wrote and marketed my first ebook “An introduction to SilkyPix” together with two Taste Collections to enhance creativity within the Silkypix product.
This sparked interest from Shortcut Software (Silkypix’s US distributors) and led to a short-lived affiliate relationship. Within a few months, I contacted ISL Japan directly and became the UK distributor for Silkypix products and subsequently started SilkypixUK.
In January 2008, I started ukBirdPhotographers.Net, with an aim is to provide an on-line community where like-minded bird and wildlife photographers could discuss and critique images, share techniques and experiences, review equipment and generally keep in touch.
ukBPN steadily gained freindly membership, web presence and received over 1 million hits in the first 4 months.
In July 2008, I incorporated GlobalTech Commerce Ltd and became the official UK distributor for Feisol carbon fibre photographic support systems through the ecommerce outlet FeisolUK.
Feisol products are growing into a well respected brand and GlobalTech Commerce Ltd sells to both consumer and commercial customers throughout the UK.
In December 2010, I terminated the Silkypix distribution contract with ISL in order to focus on other business interests and re-kindle a life long passion for Motorcycle touring!
Similarly, after 3 years of running ukBPN with membership waning and Moderators moving on to pastures new, I decided to pull the plug and spend less time online!
Like many, I also have a day job which over the last 15 years has developed from Project Manager, Programme Manager through to Regional ICA/SCADA Manager for Southern Water.
As time permits, I continue to write product reviews and my passion for photography evolves.
This year (2012) will also be the 3rd year I have organised a group wildlife photography trip to Sanibel – Florida. These over-subscribed trips are incredible fun and offer a real interactive distraction from the virtual world of forums, tweets and blogs!
As for the future, my wife (Anne) and I will no doubt spend more time travelling around Europe (and beyond) on our mighty KTM 990 Adventure with trusty camera in hand – documenting our mature years for posterity!
Regards,
John Nevill MBA, LRPS
