Born in 1952, removed from top English boarding school in 1966 for consistent unsporting messing around with electronics, guitars, cameras, darkrooms and typewriters, plus major underachievement.
1968 Gained university entrance acceptance and partner for life at state school in Yorkshire mining village. Turned down reading English at Kings, London, in favor of becoming a junior reporter on the Sheffield Star.
1972 Married partner for life, thus terminating Shirley's degree studies. Writing for photographic journals; technical reviewer for PHOTOGRAPHY. Resigned from newspaper in
1975 when demarcation prevented combining writing and photography, became freelance with Shirley and six-month-old Richard to support.
1976 Associate Editor of PHOTO TECHNIQUE, then Editor of THE PHOTOGRAPHER, freelance for SUNDAY TIMES, NEW SCIENTIST, TLS, and countless minor publications. Stock photography through Tony Stone Associates and Ace.
1977 appointed Public Relations Officer for Scope Data Systems (CTM - Diehle Datensystems brand).
1978 Associate Editor of VIDEO PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES, editor of SHEFFIELD & SOUTH YORKSHIRE TOPIC.
1979 Contributing editor of YOU & YOUR CAMERA. Formed commercial advertising photography partnership; cleaned up, sold out, moved house, set up the same solo in 1980.
1981 Contributing editor of various photo magazines, then launch Editor of CREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY. Appointed Director of Minolta Club of Great Britain. Ordered �15,000 CTM system. Scope went bust. Bought Adler Bitsy instead... same 16-bit machine. Wrote Club administration set-up.
1982, Ailsa born.
1984, Editor of MASTER PHOTOGRAPHY. Bought Macintosh 128k for �2,250. Two studios up and running, closed second in 1985.
1985 First LaserWriter north of Watford. Scripted automatic Club membership administration suite using Omnis 1, then 3. Still fully functional.
1986 MP became first monthly commercial periodical to be set using Macintosh and output on Britain's first Linotronic 100, owned by Cotswold Press. Featured in Apple US marketing literature. Was to be set using ReadySetGo! but all the fonts failed to work. Switched to beta version of PageMaker, courtesy of Aldus with two days to rework entire issue. It worked. PageMaker believer ever since. XPress? More like the mail train from St Pancras!
1987 formed Icon Publications Limited. ILFORD PHOTO magazine and MP win Icon 1st and 2nd places for Best Magazine or Newspaper in the first PIRA DTP Awards.
1988 moved to Scotland on crest of English house-price boom.
1989, launched PHOTOpro as a quarterly magazine.
1990, Editor of THE PHOTOGRAPHER monthly for second incumbency, until early 1994.
Mid-1994, launched PHOTO CLUB NEWS.
March 1995, PHOTOpro (now bi-monthly) to go monthly; PHOTON service launch on WWW.
No hobbies to speak of, beyond a beloved Martin D18 (thanks, Shirley - the best present I ever had!), inherited grand piano (the best swap I ever did), huge D-I-Y restoration housing project, garden maintenance, two goats, three chickens, one cockerel, two ducks, two chinchillas, seven cats, rabbit, etc.
Now unemployable. Excluded from affluent traditional British society on grounds of appearance, dress sense, musical tastes and mindset. Happy to enjoy the society of the rest of the world.
Fellow of the British Institute of Professional Photography, Associate of the Master Photographers Association, full Member of the Association of Industrial Editors. From 1984 to 1994, around 12 books in print, with many others edited, designed and produced. Books are now mainly Shirley's area, in between her returning to achieve a top second BA (Hons) from the Open University and going on to do Masters in Color Science.
Icon Publications Ltd will do absolutely anything for money.