About Simon Hawkings

I am Simon Hawkings, amateur photographer living in Reading, Berkshire in England.

I have been taking photographs seriously for a couple of years now. I had been interested in photography for many years and had learnt the basics in the dark room at my school in Newbury. Of course that was using film cameras. I found using film to be very time consuming and often frustrating as the 'trial and error' system was expensive and sometimes fruitless. This stunted my interest a little and it wasn't until the advent of good value digital SLRs that I got back into the game!

Initially I was planning on focussing on sport and urban photography, but it seems that I have naturally spent more time on landscape work. Until very recently I have never spent much time using post processing software, but of late have found that there really are some great effects to be had and no shame in learning the dreaded photoshop.

This blog is a new project for me and is designed to not only encourage more photography, but also to be an opportunity to get some feedback from all the other great photographers on the net. It was however, inspiration from some of the other blogs that really convinced me to have a go. I have such respect for David Nightingale at chromasia.com and Julien Roumagnac. There are too many mention, but I'll do one more, Sam Javanrouh at dailydoseofimagery. All great work! Thanks for the inspiration guys, and I hope I can give something similar back!

Check out the links for their sites:

Sam Javanrouh
David Nightingale
Julien Roumagnac

Photography Equipment

Nikon D70s Body
AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G IF-E
Tamron 70-300mm F4-5.6 Di AF Macro 1:2
Sigma 10-20mm HSM

Velbon Tripod (cheapy)
Nikon SB-200 Speedgun

Cokin P-Series
Tobacco Grad

B&W Circular Polarizer