"My interest in photography started as a 14 year old in the early 70's. I was given an ancient enlarger by the local post master and turned my bedroom into a darkroom. I processed my own black and white photos and also dabbled with color printing. When I left school and got a job the first thing I bought was my trusty Olympus OM-1 which I used for two decades.
In the same year (1976) I started studying photography at night at the Seven Hills College of art and graduated 2 years later. Later that year I started work at Prolab - a professional photo-finishing lab near Brisbane where I worked for 6 years. Mostly I operated their largest enlarger but also monitored the chemistry and did a lot of color matching and correcting of prints and enlargements. As well as all the boring (to me) weddings and such I did darkroom work for some of Australia's top wildlife and nature photographers – I learned a thing or two during my stay.
On leaving Prolab briefly ran my own backyard screen printing business.
After switching to a career in computers and electronics I continued to build up a portfolio of images of places I visited. Many of my photos are from the 16 or so camping trips I did to the Capricorn Bunker group of islands off the Queensland coast. In recently the availability of affordable hi-quality printers, scanners and digital cameras has renewed my interest in creating images. Another boost comes from affordable digital image stitching (panorama) programs which opened a new dimension of possibilities.
Now in the new millennium I've swapped the film, paper and chemistry for CCDs, micro-drives and inkjet printers. Instead of building darkrooms, I write software to allow me to work more closely with the images. We can now do things that were impossible with traditional photography.
In the past my images were never for the public, however frequent requests from people who want my prints hanging in their homes I decided to offer some of my images for sale.
The strongest images I capture are up close and intimate natural scenes with the occasional human artifacts.
My photos say "hey look at this" and "notice that". This is my new role - to show people things they can't otherwise see. I take a tree and hold it up to your eyes and twist it all around. I capture the special light that only shines for five minutes very other day and hang it on the wall.
Take a look - Enjoy!"
Eddie.M.
Contact Artist
Artist Portfolio
