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I am an electronics engineer by profession and for me, design, the creative element of engineering, is a wonderful thing. There is a beauty in the process of developing something that didn't exist to solve a problem that prevents a process from happening or enable a movement forward in the comprehension of an idea or function. My contribution to this spectrum of ideas was never going to be huge, if even measurable, in the great scheme of things but I can say that what is there now that wasn't previously, and its existance is there by dint of my own power of thought is a good feeling. This creativity, this desire to build something from scratch, has always been in me; I drew as a boy, made wooden things in the garden shed, played with Lego (without plans). It is an itch that I've never wanted to scratch. I don't design electronic things anymore, the pay was terrible and I also had a knack in the commercial arena so I moved into sales and that is where I remain, until retirement, I suspect.
I have been a photographer for a score or more years and for the last decade or so I have taken it "seriously". I wanted to take control of the creative process from the very outset and whilst the bulk of my early photography was family shots processed at photo labs I felt a need to get an enlarger and start to control the process myself and put more of myself in it (or maybe it was take more of other people out of it?). I now think I'm a competent photographer with a good grasp of the technicalities of the image making process, both from an analogue and digital process perspective; I have used, and still do use, completely manual cameras as well as cameras that offer fully automatic operation. I use film and digital capture cameras and continue to feel that both offer appropriate image creation capabilities sympathetic to different subjects. I have exhibited and had images published. people have paid money for my work which hang on their walls - and that gives me a great deal of pleasure - probably more so than my electronic circuit design of thse years ago.
So I wondered how I would feel when I received my AoP pack from the courier this morning, I suspected that the course would be a back to basics primer for it is designed as a foundation module to ensure a minimum standard of competency, and I was right. I've spent a couple of hours reveiwing it, spoken to my tutor and then sat back and thought how should I approach the first assignment. Well, my first thought was that I've never had any formal training as a photographer. I've read a good deal on the subject and I have a circle of very good photographers who are very happy to discuss photography with me and I have a large number of monographs of famous, infamous and hardly known photographers that I've collected over the years. My conclusion therefore is that I will work on the assignment with as fresh a mind as I can muster.

The early computers that I designed had a very rudimantary software functionality and as these systems were developed it would often be the case that the system would need restting, the hardware would "hang" as the software would hold the computer in some perpetual loop. The control to reset the computer was often hitting two keys Ctrl and 0. it would bring the system back to the beginning, reset all the registers all the variables and bring the system to a known safe condition. I suspect I need to hit ctrl 0 and check all my perceptions and I think that should be fairly straightforward to do from the technical perspective. It will be all too difficult to "unlearn" what I feel about the art of image creation as that didn't come from photography, rather it has come from my life to date. My "art" has come from a life of looking at pictures, from literature, from the theatre, music and, well, just about everywhere; so I guess I will inform the technical reset with whatever I have in my art locker. As Primo Levi wrote in one of his great books "The Periodic Table":  "That conquering matter is to understand it, and understanding matter is necessary to understanding the universe and ourselves.." I don't profess that whatever I will do in this course will help me understand the universe but it might help me learn more about myself and how I interact with my universe.
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