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I’ve been a professional photographer based in Aberdeen in the North of Scotland for over 30 years now, but I started getting serious about photography at my school camera club in Glasgow when I was about 12 years old and had my first picture published in a magazine at 14. I won my first photography competition at 15, by which time I worked part time in a local camera shop. Around about that time I bought an enlarger for £ 5 and set up my first darkroom in the back of our garage. I had a lot of fun and probably started testing back then - I bought and tried every black and white developer that passed through the little shop where I worked. When I left school I got a job as an assistant to an advertising photographer and by the time I was 22 years old I was Chief Photographer at one of Aberdeen’s biggest photography companies. The North Sea oil boom was just getting going in Aberdeen then, and the company had one of the biggest contracts for photography, so I spent much of the next few years on offshore oil platforms, construction barges, oil rigs, tugs and supply boats, and also spent a lot of time hanging out of light aircraft and helicopters - which, as I love flying, was no hardship. The company also provided general services like wedding photography, which, although a great training ground, and, at times, great fun, didn’t satisfy my creative urges, so at 25 I left to set up David Gold Photography which has now been in business for over 30 years specialising in offshore and aerial photography. Work has taken me all over the world - but my back yard is still the North Sea.
The early days of the North Sea oil industry were front page news, but over the years media interest has faded and the focus of my professional work has gradually become more technical than pictorial. I still have a need to make creative photographs though - I’ve lived photography for 40 years now, so it’s way too late to stop. That first Russian camera my dad bought me really started something - So apart from my professional work I’m also a keen amateur photographer and this year I was very proud to be elected President of the Mearns Camera Club - www.mearnscameraclub.co.uk - easily the best camera club in the north east of Scotland.
www.phototestcenter.com
Who knows where it will all end?
David Gold
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