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My father was a general dentist with an enthusiastic interest in photography who passed the passion onto me. When I was eight, I went to Chester Zoo with a Kodak film camera given to me by my father. From then on, my film photography was all about family and holidays. During my PhD research in Manchester, I learned to develop my own black and white film for my publications. Part of my restorative consultant training took place at the now-closed Wordsley General Hospital in the West Midlands. Here I learned dental photography as part of an implant overdenture trial. I was taught by a medical photographer who was keen that I followed the rules. She instilled a systematic approach to my photography for which I will be forever grateful. I switched to digital photography in 2000, 10 years later I started to get involved in a picture a day project and became fully immersed in Instagram. My confidence grew and I began to take photographs of different subjects unrelated to dentistry.
I built up a portfolio of photographs and then tentatively entered local and national competitions. In 2019, I came first and third in a local competition and followed this up with some other local successes. However, my goal was to receive recognition in the prestigious ‘Landscape Photographer of the Year’ awards. My first few entries did not get shortlisted, but I did not give up and kept on entering the competition. In 2022, a picture of the canals in Birmingham was commended and published in the annual Landscape of the Year photobook. This year, two of my pictures were selected for publishing. One highly commended, another commended, and both in the cityscapes category. Furthermore, several other photographs have been successful in other competitions at the international level.
My journey has been a rollercoaster from family orientated snapshots to work-related dental photography. This gave me the confidence to make the transition to other areas of photography. The rewards are not the prizes, but the networking with other like-minded people, the personal benefits include discovering new skills and places to photograph. I have not begun to mention the health benefits that photography brings. I do believe that my dental background has helped me with my observations of life. Readers of Dental Update will want to know what cameras I used, and what was the secret ingredient to such success. I may surprise you that the composition is key, and the camera is just a tool. I use my iPhone, a Fujix100v and a Canon 5D iv, which have all delivered successful pictures. As to composition, all those years observing and photographing patients has taught me to look for the small details when observing the bigger picture of life.
I follow many dentists who are taking superb clinical photographs, several of whom are crossing over successfully into mainstream photography. So, remember that the macro lens with ring flash may lead to another career outside dentistry, and lead you onto a wider exposure of your talents.