I am not really a professional photographer. Until quite recently my occupation has been orthopaedic surgery. Athough, I have used photography as a part of my work, I have now retired from cutting skin and splitting muscles to reveal the fractured bone and putting it all together again, and can wholeheartedly engage myself in the noble art of photography.

My first camera was given to me when I was 7 or 8 years old. It was a box-camera producing images 4x4cm on a roll-film that could take 12 pictures. Now we’re in the middle of the '50’s and though color film was available, it was very expensive. So for me, I had to do with b/w Ilford film. I can clearly recall my disappointment after taking a picture of a hill filled with darkblue and yellow croci surrounded by green grass in early spring, and it came out all grey.

My next camera was a Kodak Retina 1A that I inherited from my older sister, who in turn had inherited it from our big brother. The pictures were now 24x36mm and there were 36 of them on a roll of film, but they were still in b/w.

My parents noted my interest in photography and when I was 15 or 16 I had my first system camera, a Canon Fx as I recall. From there on I have stuck to Canon and worked my way through a couple of models. I still keep my old F-1 on a shelf! Round about that time I visited my English cousins. My aunt, once nick-named the Great Dane by her English husband, had earlier been a portrait photographer in Sweden, and taught me the basics of nature photography. Her youngest daughter is an extremely talented photographer and I urge you to visit her website at www.anitastokesphotograhy.com.

In the '60’s I did a lot of darkroom work as we all did at that time but I always longed for colors. So there was a period of experimental photography involving color developing which was rather frustrating because it took so long time to produce one picture, and the result was rarely what I had in mind.

In 2006 my wife Lena and I started scuba diving and brought along with us our cameras down. Primarily we took “pictures” but gradually we tried to take “photographs” under water. I once asked my cousin Anita for advice and she told me that her knowledge of UW-photography was a “big fat zero” and I thought, “well that’s nice, at least I don’t have to compete with here in this field”.

When I was quite young I asked my aunt why some cars in England had an “L” stuck on them. “That’s because they are still learners” she told me. “I see”,I said, “ so all of the cars with GB on them are getting better?”. So there may be an “L” stuck on the pictures in my site here but I hope that it will be replaced with a “GB” in due course.

Stockholm 2014-07-12