When I acquired my first DSLR, little did I know how consumed I would become with this beguiling and intriguing pastime. What started out as an idle curiosity has now become an all consuming obsession, where a simple walk to the shops doubles up as a possible photography scouting mission.

I’d just like to share my experiences of photography thus far, and highlight the “life cycle” of an amateur photographer – maybe some of you will be able to relate to these words.

The first stage is one of naive exuberance, aimlessly wandering around shooting anything that looks vaguely interesting. “Look, a squirrel…!” – click, click, click, click. “A tree!” – click, click, click…any shots that are compositionally interesting are a bonus, and inspire you to discover why they’re compositionally interesting.

The next stage is discovering the power of depth of field – I’ve lost count of the number of coffee mugs / vases / inanimate objects I’ve shot, just so I could blur the background…at this point the possibilities of this exciting medium began opening up to me.

The third stage involves learning more about composition, depth of field, colours, tones, tension, intent, and discovering that around 10% of your shots are actually half decent. Not only that, you now have an inkling as to why they’re half decent! Bonus!

The next stage was the most difficult for me, and one that I still struggle with. You’re confident you know what constitutes a good shot, and you’re fairly sure you can capture something of interest on your next photography trip. So, the pressure is on….you take around 500 shots of each location just to be sure, and the journey home is one of muted, tense contemplation. Sure, the shots look great on the LCD, but they always do, don’t they?

You arrive home, boot the computer up, frantically plug the camera in to the USB slot and begin uploading. To your relief there are at least three good shots from the seventeen 4GB memory cards you’ve filled that day, so you can at least sleep easily that night.

I first realised I’d reached this stage on holiday in Italy last year. I wanted some sunset shots down by the lake, and I’d even invested in a new Sigma 10-20mm wideangle lens especially for the occasion. As above, I took around 50 billion shots to make sure at least one of them was bordering on the acceptable. That evening whilst having dinner I sat and whimpered quietly inside, knowing that it would be another five days before I could upload the shots and see if they were what I was looking for. As a result, my girlfriend got the hump and dinner was ruined, and I learned my lesson.

The stage I’m at now contain elements of the above, but with more relaxed overtones. Take yesterday for example – I was kicking around the flat with nothing to do, so I grabbed my camera and headed down to Canary Wharf in London. Instead of my heart being filled with trepidation, my stomach was filled with butterflies, fairly sure that I’d take at least one or two good shots. And that would be enough.