I'm the one with the short ears and the remote control in my hand!

I'm 28 and an Internet software developer and Linux systems administrator by profession. I
grew up with computers (ZX81, C64, C128, Amiga, PC) and then studied computing. After
living in England, Germany & Wales I recently moved to Norway after separating from my
partner.

Regarding photography, I'm only an amateur. I was about 10 when I inherited a 110 film
camera; when I was 14 I was given a b/w film darkroom development kit (fun, but messy) and
inherited Grandpa's 35mm SLR camera. After that I inherited my Dad's 35mm SLR camera but
didn't use it much because manually setting up the SLR for each photo took too long.

I didn't really go in for photography in a big way, my results were often unpredictable
and I hated the long round-trip times to get a film developed (I'd take 20 pictures of a
36 picture film and it would stay in the camera for a year waiting for more photo
opportunities). Even when I was given a 120mm zoom point-and-shoot I rarely used it.

Then (* drum roll ... *) my partner's son was given a very basic Jenoptik digital camera,
which took photos which were, in all honesty, terrible, but it was the immediate picture
transfer to the PC which got me hooked - I immediately bought a Kodak DC240 (3x zoom) with
LCD preview (the height of luxury!), which I had for a couple of years (took 3600 photos).
Finally finding the 3x zoom inadequate, the quality of the add-on lenses unusable and the
lack of a bit more manual control frustrating, I decided to upgrade (justifying the GBP
700 expense to my partner with the promise of safe, long-range shots of bears on the
upcoming Canada holiday - but the only bears we saw were in Calgary zoo...)!

I've now taken over 6300 photos with the UZi and although it's feature set was initially
daunting I now feel really at home with it.

A couple of galleries (Norway & Canada) are on my server at www.hill.be ; before coming to
Norway I spent almost all my free time renovating our cottage, so the photos from that
time are mainly hurried snapshots documenting day trips and the renovation.