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Oh dear, another "about me" page. If you have arrived here by mistake, now is your chance to leave gracefully by returning to my home page.
To those of you who are determined to see it through, you will have probably gathered by now that my name is Paul Chesterfield and my specialist subject is natural history close-up photography. I will try not to be too self-indulgent here, but I thought it might be interesting, (for me at least) to trace my interest in photography from its beginnings to where I am today. Hopefully it may even make some sense. |
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Me, age 2 (aaah!) I was born in Bromley, on the outskirts of London, in 1951, and spent my early years in Ealing in west London. When I was four we moved to Hartley, a small village in north Kent. It was there that my interest in photography began - not, as you might suspect taking pictures of the countryside on my doorstep, but instead photographing motor racing at the nearby Brands Hatch motor racing circuit. My earliest attempts to use a fairly basic Kodak Instamatic camera were not very successful, and it is probably fortunate that few of my pictures from that time have survived. Interestingly, the only pictures that do still exist are from a trip to London Zoo (a rather tired rhino and a very bored-looking 'Gus the Gorilla') so perhaps the seeds of my current interest were there even then. I eventually graduated to secondary school, the grandly named Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School, in Rochester. More colloqially known as "Rochester Math", my 'new' school was in fact a rather ancient pile built in part into the old city walls, as can be seen in the school photograph below. |
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School photo, 1963, my first year at my new school.
I'm in here somewhere... It is fair to say that I was at best an average student, but I did manage to meet some like minded photographers and this encouraged me to continue taking pictures. Rochester Math had its own photographic darkroom hidden away in one of its deeper quadrangles and this provided an ideal place to hide away from the prying eyes of Masters and Prefects, so we took all available opportunities to congregate there. We began to learn some rudimentary darkroom skills in order to show the curious that we were "serious photographers", but as time passed I began to look forward to my spells in the darkroom more for what I was achieving than for what I was avoiding. I had by this time progressed to a Zorki 4 rangefinder camera in the hope that this would improve my motor racing pictures. To an extent it did - my pictures were certainly sharper, but the cars were still tiny dots lost in the expanse of the racing circuit. I obviously needed a telephoto lens, which meant changing camera again to one of the new (and expensive) single lens reflex cameras. Eventually I managed to find an affordable second-hand Canon FTb SLR and a Vivitar 70-210mm zoom lens. Unfortunately, however, I had little time in my final study year to experiment with my new equipment and many of its possibilities remained unrecognised.
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And so to work...
One of my better subjects at school was geography, and the aspect of geography that I enjoyed most was reading and working with maps. It was perhaps unsurprising therefore, that on leaving school in 1969 I moved to Southampton to join Britain's national mapping agency, the Ordnance Survey. (Thirty years later I am still here, so our old Careers Master apparently got at least one placement right!) During the late '60s and early '70s Ordnance Survey (OS) was recruiting large numbers of young staff and a thriving OS Sports and Social Club catered for a wide range of activities. There was even an OS Photographic Society, but I still did not really consider myself a "serious photographer" and paid it no attention. Instead I met up with the motor racing fraternity and my photography continued to be limited to the many Grands Prix, Touring Car Championships, endurance races and the like that we went off to whenever the opportunity arose. Unfortunately I soon learned that a 210mm lens was still not powerful enough to take the sort of pictures I wanted, but bigger lenses were too expensive and slowly my interest in this form of photography waned. One feature of my zoom lens was what was called a "close focus" setting. One day I decided to experiment by taking some close-up photographs of the flowers and insects in my parent's garden. The results were out of focus and poorly framed (they were hand-held and I never had a very steady hand). Even so the tiny details that were visible when the prints came back astounded me: bees with hairy bodies and pollen sacks clearly visible on their legs; aphids busy sucking at flower stems (my father was less impressed with that one!); and intricate details of flower buds. I was hooked. Another change of camera equipment was called for, and I upgraded to a Canon AE1 and later the wonderful Canon A1. I bought a proper macro lens, optically designed for close-up photography, and that most useful and necessary tool for the macro photographer, a tripod. I regained my interest in darkroom work and taught myself how to produce Cibachrome prints from my growing collection of colour slides. The trouble was, I was producing photographs that pleased me, but I had no real idea whether they were any good either technically or artistically. Then I was introduced to the wonderful world of camera clubs |
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Ordnance Survey Photographic Society had been around long before I joined Ordnance Survey and counted (and still counts) some very skilled photographers among its members. There was a varied programme of lectures, constructive criticism on competition nights, and plain old-fashioned advice and guidance from fellow members. At a higher level there were inter-club knock-out competitions, and national and international exhibitions providing yet more challenges to aspire to. All of this helped me, slowly but surely, to improve my own photographic skills to the point where I was able to gain first my Licentiateship (LRPS) and then my Associateship (ARPS) of the Royal Photographic Society. When I first became interested in close-up photography I would photograph any subject that would stand still for long enough. This was not always successful, because in close-up work "in the wild" the smallest movement of the subject, caused perhaps by the slightest breeze, would be enough to cause a blurred image. Out of necessity I have therefore taken my share of flash pictures, attempting to balance two or even three flash guns to produce a more natural-looking result. Some examples of both natural and flash lighting can be found in my 'Plants' and 'Insects' pages. |
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At about this time I came across a book called "Caught in Motion", which contains wildlife photographs by Stephen Dalton. It impressed me greatly. Stephen produces superb pictures of insects in flight, using a custom-built flight tunnel and ultra-fast flash guns. Despite the complicated set up needed to accomplish this, he still manages to make the final results look both natural and pictorially pleasing. This started me wondering whether I too could produce (somewhat less ambitious) natural-looking pictures in more controlled conditions. I upgraded my camera equipment yet again, to a Canon EOS 1N and a Canon 100 mm macro lens. The extra facilities provided by this camera enabled me to begin to specialise in photographing what had become my main area of interest, butterflies and moths, which together form the insect order lepidoptera. Most of my more recent pictures, including many of those in my 'Butterflies' and 'Moths' pages here, are actually photographed indoors on a table top in the natural light from a window. I have included a brief explanation of the process under 'Technical stuff'. This method provides me with much greater control over the photographic environment and has enabled be to produce much crisper images. Hopefully I have been successful enough to produce photographs that look as if they are in the insect's natural environment. I do admit to some artistic license, however, in that I sometimes position my subjects on plants that suit the particular photographic composition but that might not necessarily be their natural home. |
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Computers with Everything
Okay, having survived the change of millennium I am getting soft in my old age and am starting to forsake the darkroom in favour of the computer. I have always enjoyed producing and manipulating photographs and graphics on my PC, as this web site may show (although, with the experience gained since I produced this website, I can now see several areas I would like to revisit - if only I had the time!). So, is the darkroom dead? Not yet, I'm sure, but sitting at a PC in the warm with the ability to undo my mistakes at the touch of a button is so much more civilised than working in a cold darkroom where a poor print is consigned to the bin! My latest venture is into web site design, so far mainly for butterfly breeders in the U.S.. I have made some new friends (the wonders of email! :-) and am getting new business more or less by word of mouth. That's what can happen when you specialise! I'm never going to be rich, but I enjoy doing it, but I look on it as an ideal way to be able to play with photographs, computers and graphics at other people's expense. But please don't tell anyone...
Having gained my ARPS several years ago, I have now achieved a DPAGB, which is the Distinction award of the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain and is judged at exhibition standard. Unfortunately my health has taken a dive recently so I don't think I will be trying for either of the highest awards, the FRPS (Fellowship) or MPAGB (Masters). In 2001 I reached the grand old age of 50. As luck would have it, my employers chose this year to me an offer I couldn't refuse - early retirement! Well, not just me, anyone who fitted certain criteria (e.g. age 50+) were invited to apply. I worked out the money on offer (equivalent to about half-pay), decided the difference wasn't worth another 10-15 years working in the hope of surviving until official retirement age, and sent in my application. I'm sure I only imagined hearing cheering from the Human Resources dept (you know it's time to leave when you change from being a person to being a human resource!) but my application was accepted and I duly left. Almost a year on as I write this update, and despite having considerably less money to spend on my admittedly expensive hobbies, I have no regrets - and absolutely no desire to re-enter the rat race by getting another job! Which brings me more or less up to date. I haven't done that much photography since retiring, there has been too much else to occupy me - not least my growing interest in website design. Nevertheless I still enjoy my photographs as much as I ever did, and I hope my web site has enabled me to share some of that enjoyment with you. As I have said elsewhere, I make no claims to be an expert in insect or plant identification, so please forgive me if I have made any mistakes. If you have any comments, corrections or suggestions to make (within reason) please let me know.
Please visit my new photo gallery website at: www.imagesfromnature.net |
Me, age 47 (aaah!)
