Rod Thomas is a multiple International award winning photographer who has had his images published in magazines all across Australia. His work also graces the walls of homes in Canada, London, USA and Australia. Rod is based in Lake Macquarie, just 2 hours north of Sydney and is available for commissioned work.
” I had travelled overseas to Canada and Europe in my mid 20’s, armed with a Nikon F90X, to work in Whistler taking tourist photos. It was this trip in particular, along with a few more afterwards, that convinced me … photography for me was more than just a hobby, it is what I want to do for the rest of my life .I went through a stage on this trip where I changed from film to digital, buying a Nikon D100 and it was great, but when I returned home I purchased a Linhof 617SIII … A specialised camera that takes pictures in the panoramic format of 3:1.
This camera was all manual, no light meters, batteries, viewfinder or anything and I loved it. It got me back to where I started and made me think more about the shots I was taking. Now I was interested in another area of photography, panoramic landscapes.
After owning the Linhof for a few years, I decided to sell it. I loved this camera to death, but with film getting harder to come by, developing costs going mental, scanning and everything else that went with it, plus the fact I now had a family of my own which meant I was not shooting as much, it just made sense to sell it.
I upgraded all of my digital gear, switched from Nikon to Canon purchasing a 5DMKII and invested in software that allows me to still to do the panoramics, and I have not looked back. My current gear includes the 5DMKII, 17-40 f4/L, 24-70 f2.8/L and 70-200 f4/L lenses, Manfrotto tripods, RRS ballhead and Apple computers.
People are always asking me “Have you played with this? Have you done that?” and “Oh, you must have done that in the computer as it could not have looked like that!“ and my answer is always the same … Yeah, I use a computer to sometimes enhance what I saw, but I never add things to make the image more interesting like cars, people or clouds. I use a computer to do what people have been doing for along time in the dark room, all without the messy chemicals and small confined spaces that are usually associated with a darkroom.
Photography for me is an absolute passion, and something one day I hope to be able to do full time. It has allowed me the opportunities to travel and see some stuff that people would sometimes never get the chance to see and I have also met lots of people in my travels that I am lucky enough to now call friends. “