Cranborne Chase Pictures
Copyright Cranborne Chase Pictures 2005-2008©
Andrew Row
Both of my parents are painters, my paternal grandfather was a semi-professional photographer, and the other a very competent amateur. My uncle was also a very keen amateur photographer, and my two brothers both studied photography at Salisbury School of Art, and one now works as a photographer at the British Museum. With so many photographers in the family, it is hardly surprising that I developed an interest in taking pictures myself.
My first experience of taking pictures was on a archipelago on the other side of the world now known as Kiribati (Gilbert Islands), where I was a VSO volunteer teacher in 1970. The camera was an ancient Voigtlander twin lens reflex inherited from my grandfather, Eric Freer. The first problem became apparent as soon as I took my camera out, and immediately became surrounded by a crowd of people posing and posturing in front of me. Very few of them had ever had their picture taken, and so all were eager to see themselves in a picture. Having a small budget, I had taken only 2 spools of Kodak Ektachrome 120 slide film with me, 12 exposures on each spool, and had thought that would be enough to get me started. However, this meagre supply of film was soon used, most of it on my new friends.
On my return form the Gilbert Islands a year later, I got a degree in zoology at Nottingham University, but apart from taking pictures of water voles I didn’t spend much time taking photographs. It wasn’t until I got my first job as a countryside ranger in Strathclyde Park in Scotland, and I had enough money to buy my first Minolta SLR, that I rediscovered my interest in photography, and started taking pictures of the surrounding countryside and its wildlife. Both of my brothers had studied photography, and I managed to learn from them, and even set up a darkroom in a cupboard, and became good at making black and white prints.
Since the early 1980’s, I’ve made my home in the New Forest, and have found many photographic subjects. My interest is in landscape and nature photography.