Martin Hickling

The Early Years (1972-1985)

I started my interest in photography at the tender age of seventeen. I attended North Cestrian Grammar School in Altrincham, Cheshire. I was in the lower sixth form, and we had a common room in the upper echelons of the old house that was the main school. We discovered a small room that had been used for photography but was now covered in dust. We asked permission, which was granted, and a small group of us duly cleaned the room and set it to working order.
We spent most lunchtimes and even stayed after school on some occasions. We learnt to process our own Black and White films and develop the images on paper. I bought my first camera, a Zenit-B (without the light meter), and started taking photographs.
Strangely, I have none of the black and white negatives from the early years. I have no idea what happened to them.
Shortly after leaving school, I progressed to C6 slide film, doing all my own processing. There was something about spending the day photographing images and then being able to view them the same evening (wow). I also started colour prints using the CIBA chrome process from slides. As I had started work, I now had some spare cash and purchased a Carena SLR camera with a 42mm Pentax mount. I ended up with a large selection of lenses for this camera. Sadly, the camera died shortly after I got married in 1985, and I did not have the funds to replace it.
First Digital (2002-2007)

In 2002, I managed to buy my first digital camera. A Samsung Digimax 350SE. This was one of the best cameras around at that time and took some good photographs, mainly due to the fitted Schneider lens. This was a 3.2 megapixel camera that gave better results than the Sony 5.0 megapixel camera that was around at the time.
Digital SLR (2007-2016)

I kept the Samsung camera until my 52nd birthday in 2007, when I purchased my first Digital SLR. An Olympus E400. There were good write-ups for this camera, and I had always wanted an Olympus. I progressed to an Olympus E520 in July 2009. I kept his camera until 2014 when I upgraded to an Olympus E30. This was a second-hand camera from the States and had to be repaired as soon as it arrived. With hindsight, the images from this camera never seemed quite right. They were often slightly out of focus, and looking back at my records, I seemed to take fewer images over the next couple of years.
In July 2015, I decided to use my old E520 as it was just lying on the shelf. I made the bold plunge of having the camera converted to infrared. I had a 580nm filter installed and spent some time experimenting. Water and old buildings gave the best results. This gives a completely different view of photography.
Mirrorless Compact (2016-2024)

In July 2016, I took advantage of an Olympus offer to try before you buy, and immediately borrowed an Olympus OMD E-M1 Mark 1 mirrorless camera with a 12-42mm lens and an extra 75-300mm telephoto. The results from this trial were really impressive, and I realised how bad the E30 had been. I had a small problem, as there was a rumour of a new version just around the corner, but this left me with a camera taking inferior images that I felt I could not use.
In September 2016, I purchased an OMD EM1 Mark I micro 4/3 camera and several lenses. Later that same year, I upgraded to an OMD EM1 Mark II.
I have added several new lenses to my collection and regularly take photographs in the local area. I had a stroke in September 2020 and find it very difficult to take photographs without a tripod these days.
Towards the end of March 2024, I upgraded again to the Olympus OM-1. This is an amazing camera, super fast with loads of features. My old OMD EM1 Mark 11 was now basically redundant, so I took the plunge and had it converted to full-spectrum Infrared. With the addition of screw-in filters, I can now take Infrared images from 590nm up to 830nm.
I spend a lot of time in the garden photographing flowers and insects.