Hi, I’m Ashley Davies. Welcome to Photo Guides.

The Nutshell:

First things first, I’m a 17 year old guy from Melbourne in Australia, and yes I’m fully aware that I have a girls name. I’m a year 12 student in the midst of my final year at school, so things are pretty busy for me. I’ve got a few great passions in life including cars, technology, sport and of course photography. To me though, these passions are just topics. My real love is to be involved in these worlds. I love to drive, I love taking photos, fiddling with the latest tech and playing soccer.
I also love to write. I don’t care much for the essays I write at school. Instead, I enjoy writing anything that’s true to my mind or my voice. I also love design and creating a visual piece, be it through photography, Photoshop or video production.

The Site:

Photo Guides is a key to expressing my passions for photography and design. What you must understand is that I’m still learning. I’ve taken no courses, I have no degrees. All I have is an Olympus E-620, the Adobe CS3 and an obsession. Every time I write a new guide for photography, that’s me being intrigued by a topic. I delve in and search for answers, I write about it and then, not only do I have a greater understanding, but I also get to share it with everyone else. The podcasts and Photoshop tutorials are also my way of learning and improving my skills with creative design.

The Focus:

Here on PhotoGuides, you’re the special one. Every single article and guide on here is written just for you. Why? Because if you’ve enjoyed what I’ve written enough to click this colophon link and learn a bit about me, you are exactly my audience.
I’ve tried to keep this site very simple and very readable whilst still being beautiful from a designers perspective. My main focus is on content and the photography. Images are shown large and rich to add to the experience. I don’t so much care about come-and-go statistics. Members, feed subscribers, commenters and high pages per visit rates are the figures that keep me chirpy because it means someone is actually involved in the site. You can become a member too by clicking this bit of blue text here. You’ll notice that advertising on PhotoGuides is minimal. This is my attempt at being credible. I can’t stand site’s that put priority on you clicking stupid links and ads over reading what they have to say. After all, you come to a site like this because you want to read or learn.

The Ambition:

Outside of PhotoGuides, my world revolves around cars. I am an enthusiast. I appreciate and respect the world of cars, their advancements, their ingenuity, and especially their uniqueness and beauty. One day I want to combine all of my passions and review cars on video. My goal is to work of Autocar or Evo in their video devision producing credible but creative reviews of the cars I love. This world would be perfect for me as it allows me to do everything I love every day – write, drive, think, and then tell everyone else what to think. Ultimately, I’d like to dip my foot into the world of documentaries and produce films that tell fascinating stories about the things I love. If you’re reading this and you can offer me any of the jobs I’ve written above, feel free to email me.

The Photography:

I believe that being a good photographer because of your camera is like being a good cook because of your oven. Photography is all in the mind and the eyes, and regardless of the kit you’ve got, a truly good photographer can envisage an amazing photo before they’ve even pressed the shutter button. I’ve got a middle class camera, an Olympus E-620. It’s my fourth camera, and it’s pretty different to the one I started out with. It’s new, so you won’t find any photos taken with it on PhotoGuides just yet. All the other one’s have either been taken with a Fujifilm S9500 or an Olympus E-500. My particular photography interest lies in night photography (especially on the water), landscape photography or photos which tell a story. You can see it all over here.

The Background Details:

Photo Guides is run using WordPress and hosting is done by Media Templee. My theme is based on Headlines, by WooThemes with management and manipulation done via Coda. My feed is run with feedburner and you should subscribe to it.
My computer is a 13″ MacBook, always kept impeccably clean with an incredibly messy desktop. I manage myself with Things and I’m on the Inbox Zero bandwagon. I talk to my friends using Adium, unless I’ve clogged up all my 2GB of ram editing with Final Cut Express, Photoshop or Aperture.

The End

Thanks for reading this far. Remember you can always hang around by subscribing to the feed or becoming a PhotoGuides Member. Feel free to contact me whenever for whatever, be it a comment, question or just pointing out another typo (I’m rubbish with capitalizing the letter ‘i’)
I read and reply to everything and I’m interested to hear what you have to say.

Thanks

Ash Davies