ABOUT PHOTOdirection

News, comment, and many editorial, tutorial and other features are free. A subscription will allow access to special interest groups, additional in-depth and specialist articles, test reports on professional standard equipment and many other areas of interest.

Email PD HERE

Meet The CEO

From a professional background in sales and marketing Lesley Thomson came to photography via her exploits as an artist. With a flair for the subject, it is only right that she should combine all of her talents to manage PHOTOdirection.

Les commented, "There are so many aspects to the photographic industry it is a very exciting prospect for me to manage PD and for us to advance with this new site direction. We aim to provide resources, articles, information, test reports, reviews and a trade directory for all of the main areas of photography. There are many sites out there which focus on one specific area of the industry, but by providing a much broader range of information, our aim is to become the mainline station everyone goes through to get to what they are looking for. PHOTOdirection will in a sense act as catalyst for all the main areas of serious photography.

She continues, "My own experiences as a make-up artist and hair stylist, (and part-time model of many years I hasten to add,) all allow me the background I need to oversee coverage of such a broad range of information."

PHOTOdirection hopes to cover all of the main subjects for you, but If there is a particular area of interest you would like to see which is not already here, please get in touch so we can consider the prospect for including content on that subject. PD
 

An image by the CEO.

Ceilidh Dancing, Royal Deeside, Scotland
© Lesley Thomson

CEO/Contributor Les Thomson

 

Camera of Choice: Minolta Z3

 

Les can be contacted by email:

lesthomson@photodirection.com

 

A WORD ABOUT COPYRIGHT

At PHOTOdirection we take copyright VERY seriously. Any and all photographs, graphics and editorial and other content is © PHOTOdirection and/or © Element903.com unless otherwise stated.

Reproduction of ANY copyright content is strictly forbidden and will be pursued to the fullest extent of International Law.

Meet The Publisher

John Baker has been around the professional photographic industry off and on since the 70's, and a practising photographer since the late 50's.

Having worked in a variety of photographic, computing, PR and editorial related jobs, he has a unique mix of experience. As well as amateur, semi-pro and pro experience in photography, he also has extensive experience in specialist media scanning and the imaging industry in general.

With an eye for a good composition (which he also seems able to extend to his video techniques) there are many aspects of imaging he has an ability to comment and write on in great depth.

"I started in photography when I was 5 years old with a Kodak Brownie Cresta 120 which I won in a local co-op store word game competition. That was way back in 1959, and I was hooked. At that time my parents couldn't afford regular outlay for 'D&P' as developing and printing was called then, so I was fairly restricted in what I could take, and usually limited to summer holidays.

On reflection, I think that was a great discipline to have, as it forced me to think and compose before pressing the shutter, That camera worked fine for me for over a decade. When I left school in 1970 and started work in a photo retailers, I quickly moved on to a Fed 4L Leica look-alike. The one with the built in light meter. I quickly outgrew that though, and as I was working in photo retail at the time, I was ideally placed to do a part-ex deal with a customer, and moved on to the excellent Zenith 1B."

He continues, "As a kid I shot mainly landscapes and people, but when the Fed came along there was a natural progression into other areas of photography such as architecture, abstract, table-top, portraits, then studio, figure/glamour, fine art and then when finances finally allowed, documentary style video at the turn of the century."

Having travelled extensively for business and pleasure to many European countries and the USA, he has amassed a collection of over 20,000 images. His articles and photographs have been published around the world in hard copy and online, including this stunning lightning image shot in the Adriatic in 1984. This image appeared in a book called 'Images of the Mind'. PD

Lightning on the Adriatic Coast
© John Baker

 

Publisher/Contributor John Baker
 

Cameras of Choice:
- Minolta A1
- Hasselblad SWC
- Mamiya RB67

John can be contacted by email:
johnbaker@photodirection.com