About Jen
In 2000 I decided to learn how to use a 35mm camera properly so enrolled on a City & Guilds Photography course one evening a week. This taught me the basics of how to manually use a camera and then how to develop and print my own black and white images. I knew then that this was something I really enjoyed and became just a little obsessed. I still love it 20 years later and am always looking for an image whatever I am doing.
Most of the images you will see are of Dartmoor, over which I have enjoyed walking for over 35 years. When I took up photography, the most natural thing to do was to combine my two hobbies. I started off by taking mostly black and white but now use mostly colour. I was film based for quite a few years but after a long time of having people look at me as a kind of dinosaur, I eventually went over to digital, which I now have fully embraced and particularly love the freedom it gives me.
I do still use my darkroom, but mainly for personal work, I belong to a dedicated mono group, and I still have mono prints for sale, although they are likely to be scans of darkroom prints, or latterly digital black and white. I still look for images that suit black and white.
A lot of my colour images originate from colour transparencies which I have scanned and had printed by a lab. I am building a catalogue of digital colour, but felt that I could not discontinue using my old images. I am, however, trying to update a lot of them. Some of the ones further into the Moor are a bit more difficult as I can't quite manage some of the walks that I used to do!
I soon learned that the best images are made at either end of the day, although the hours in winter, with its low sun, can be made much more use of. I consider it a real privilege - once I have managed to get up - to be out at dawn. It's a magical time with colours not seen during the daytime. Again, the same can be said about the evening light, which sometimes can be unbelievable.
I live in beautiful North Devon and really am spoilt for choice. We have the sea, beaches, cliffs, green countryside, Exmoor to the east and Dartmoor to the south. There is so much to choose from that it can be difficult to even decide where to go. I consider myself to be very lucky.
The camera that I use is a Nikon D7100, together with three lenses, A Nikon 28-105mm, A Sigma 10-20mm and a Tamron 18-400mm. The 28-105 is my go to lens and obviously I use the 10-20 a lot in landscape work. The 18-400 is very useful if I am going for a walk and don't want to carry a tripod. It has vibration control, so can cope with anything of interest I come across. As time goes on I don't want to be loaded down all of the time, so it's a very useful lens.
I hope that you enjoy looking at my site as much as I have enjoyed producing the images that you see there.
If you have any questions please contact me and I will be happy to help.
Surprisingly, I have now branched out into designing earrings using my images. Please contact me if you are interested in seeing my designs.
Updated July 2020