Michael Thomson

My first experience of photography was in my father’s darkroom as a boy where I watched the magic of pictures emerging from the gently rocked hypochlorite solution. I acquired a camera and began to take pictures but with no awareness of the importance of composition(1). Later an interest in nature led me to try macrophotography producing images in the darkroom on glass plates(2).

Marriage and a family led to many years of ‘record’ shots(3) but with the children leaving home I started to be aware that light was important for good pictures(4). Joining Haddington Camera Club introduced me to guidelines for composition so I started applying the rule of thirds(5) and learning about skies(6) and early morning light(7).

Membership of the Royal Photographic Society made me realise there were much higher levels of photography to aim at but so far I have managed merely to have some prints selected for the Scottish RPS annual print exhibition(8)(9). When time allows experiments continue(10) but in 2016 I became involved in producing display panels for the Coastal Communities Museum in North Berwick using Photoshop(11). The timeline panel(12) had 176 layers and was over 9 feet long!

Please click on the image below to open the scrollable gallery.