Norman Carey
Web Page: http://
Profile: I have been into photography at various levels since my aunt used to develop black and white contact prints in the cupboard under the stairs. We had a fairly useful but very cut-price, darkroom in the loft of our bungalow in our early marriage days, but it was all black and white then with hand colouring. Then colour processing gradually became possible and (just) affordable at home so I got into that; I was at Corsham Club in those days trying to compete with the old hands. I did positive and negative colour processing and developing, and started on audio-visual work, putting sound to slides and showing them with two projectors controlled by electronic pulses from an audio cassette. Then I “retired” and we moved to Charlton Marshall where we joined Blandford Forum Camera Club. About then, using a background of computers as a hobby, I learned about digital work. In fact my first efforts at digital imaging were creating images on the monitor for an audio-visual presentation on the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, photographing the screen to make slides and setting the sound as I had done before. That seems a far cry from today’s efforts where we can digitise the sound and do all the control in the computer. All that practice in digital imaging led to helping other members, which in turn led to providing structured lessons in the medium at first in the Camera Club, but later as a teacher in Allendale House, Wimborne, teaching basic techniques with digital cameras and improving the results in Photoshop. I still try to enter the Camera Club competitions, not without a little success, and last year (2006) I managed to get my Associateship Panel approved by the Royal Photographic Society. Inevitably that has led me into judging local competitions which in turn has found me chairing the Judging Panel for the Stour and Avon Photographic Association. I enjoy photography at all levels, particularly using an artistic background of painting and modelling to make changes digitally to my work, trying to aim for a realistic photographic finish even when doing the more imaginative work – surrealism has long been a favourite style and that occasionally has expression in my output.
