About Derek

As I confessed in my first post, I’m a software developer, as well as a semi-professional photography enthusiast. I’m in Sydney, Australia, where I live with my wife and little boy, who’s 18 months old.

I’ve been a computer geek for some time, but in my early career I tried to deny this and started out as an apprentice electrician. I finished my apprenticeship, collected the complete set of tools, and then quit to follow the dream of working with computers. I worked in computing full-time as a Unix/Linux Systems Administrator, while studying my degree part-time at university for 5 years – they were long years!

When I was 12, I got a 35mm Kodak point-and-shoot camera for Christmas and that’s when I started playing around with photography. Years later, a friend gave me a 1972-vintage 35mm Nikon F2. This camera and I did the road-trip from Adelaide to Darwin, through the red country of Central Australia, and as the rolls of film piled up, I discovered that photography was more than just ‘play’ now – I loved it.

Rolls of film are fine, but like I said, I’m a geek, and digital photography was the next step. I started with a pocket-sized Sony V1 point-and-shoot but have since had several Nikon DSLRs which I’ve expanded with timers, lenses, filters and speedlights. I’ve travelled in China, the USA and round Australia shooting with my latest Nikon.

I’ve been doing professional photography on the side for a few years now, working on weddings, portraits and events. While I’ve enjoyed the professional work, I also find myself frequently frustrated and wearied by some of the challenges: 8-12 hours of straight shooting, post processing, managing orders, printing, shipping… not so much fun.

Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy the artistic challenges, but the workflow issues make it seem so inefficient. I’ve scoured the online community for solutions and answers, but most of my peers seemed to be struggling with similar questions, also seeking solutions.

… which brings me to PhotoMerchant. I couldn’t find solutions to my problems, so I decided to try and solve some of them myself. Over the last few years, I’ve focused on the PhotoMerchant project. I’m being deliberately mysterious because I’m going to tell you more about it soon… hang in there, the blog will reveal all.

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