Hi, I'm John :)

Hi folks! I guess it's my turn to be the new guy. My name's John and I live in Scotland. I wasn't born here. I was born in England but I've travelled a lot over the last 25 years and spent a few of them living in other countries. But Scotland's now adopted me as one of their own, so here I'll stay. 🙂

I've been a tech geek most of my life, since getting an Amstrad CPC464 for my 6th birthday in the 80s. I've practically lived on a computer since. I got into web development (not design) as a teen and opened up a computer shop at 19. I switched to photography about 20 years ago as my main income. These days, I write more about camera gear than actually using it (except when making videos for YouTube), but it means that the vast majority of my photography and video now is for me and not clients.

Electronics was something I really wanted to get into as a teen but I got kicked out of electronics class in high school. Not for something I did, but something somebody else did that was blamed on me. But I started taking a keen interest in it and re-learning electronics again in 2010 when the Arduino Uno was released.

Primarily, I wanted to develop devices that work with cameras. Various triggers, motion control devices and such. I still do. I'm working on a new camera trigger right now - just had the PCBs delivered last week. But I'm still a hobbyist when it comes to electronics. I have no desire to turn it into work at this point in my life, but learning about electronics again has turned out to be a lot more fun - even when it's frustrating - than I expected when I started getting back into it. 🙂