On the 30th November 2005 I gave up a six digit salary (£ Sterling) in computing to pursue the real love of my life – art and photography. (I wish I had started my blog then – now I have a bit of catching up to do!) (For brevity, instead of constantly referring to ‘art and photography’, I will from now on just call it ‘art’, unless I specifically want to discuss either one of them.)
I had been thinking about doing it for a couple of years, but this seemed like a do-it-now-or-never-do-it moment in my life. Continue with the rat race, get to a ripe old age and wonder what I did with my life, or give up a lot of security and do what I really want to do…?
Don’t get me wrong. I hadn’t just decided to pick up the brush, so to speak, and “have a go” at a new venture. On the contrary, I have been doing “serious” art since I was a teenager. I have spent most of my money and spare time on digital art and photography, and so, in some ways, because the highest quality equipment and materials is extremely expensive, my quite well paid life in computing was a necessary prequel.
Even while working in computing I was doing a lot of art. For the previous five years I was only working three or four days a week (albeit long hours), and I was a busy doing art the rest of the week (I wasn’t much of a socialiser).
I have done just about everything you can do in photography but was always frustrated that I couldn’t achieve perfection. One is never in total control in straight photography, and, as an artist and a perfectionist, I desperately wanted to be in total control. It was only when the digital revolution came along, circa 2000, that I really got excited about the possibilities…
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