Andrew Brooks about...
Hello everyone. My name is Andrew Brooks
I have been interested in photography for as long as I can remember, but I think my interest came from looking through the many National Geographic Magazines my parent's house when I was a young kid. Ever since then I have taken pictures at every chance I could get, starting off with a simple point and shoot view finder camera. During school I spent way too many hours, at first trying to teach myself how to develop in the darkroom then, once I moved to a different school being taught by my favourite teacher, how to expand my interest and creativity in photography.
After leaving school I continued my photographic interest completing a 2 year Advance Photography Course at the Photographic Imaging College at Hawthorn in Victoria, Australia during 1998 to 1999. Again during this course, I spent way too many hours in the dark room trying to perfect archival printing. During the second year of the course was when I started to develop my interest in the digital side of photography at first by developing slide and negative film then scanning them into a film scanner. I also started creating CD-Roms to display my folio of work.
Since completing my photography course I have worked as a freelance photographer for weddings, musical events, and festivals. In 2000 I enlisted into the Australian Army Reserves and continued to photography photographing the life of the Auzzie Digger at the many training exercises that I had to take part in. These days I'm in the Australian Regular Army working mainly in administration but I still as much as possible use my photographic skills to photograph the army life. My photography these days mainly consists of landscape and event photography of which is mainly a hobby but I hope to soon use my photography skills and design skills further in the future.
I believe that photography is about creating an image, not just capturing. I strongly believe that programs such as Adobe Photoshop are just simply tools to create your image, the same as photographers of yesterday used the many tricks in the darkroom to push and pull films, dodge and burn paper and manipulate the enlargers to create an image.
Photography is my obsession, and I treat every shoot with the professional discipline and attention to detail my years of service in the Army have taught me. Please let my obsession and love of photography bring you images that you can cherish.