My Profile - Marcus Kittridge

I thought it would be a good idea for me to write down a few notes here about myself in order that my future tutor(s) will get some idea of who I am, where I have come from, why I am doing this, where I hope to be going etc.

Also by looking back at myself I might get some idea of where my strengths and weaknesses may lie and reflect upon my journey to this point.

So,

My name is Marcus and I am 51 years old and married to my partner, Tracey. We live in Swindon in Wiltshire.
I have a 26 year old daughter, Charmaine, who has recently left home.

I was doing well at school until my father died suddenly when I was 10 years old. My focus disappeared and I muddled through the rest of school and left with a clutch of technical 'O' levels.

I completed a five year engineering apprenticeship with Vickers Ltd and concurrently with attended college where I completed an ONC and an HND in Engineering.

I worked in several engineering disciplines (design, installation, field service, special projects and consulting) for the next 25 years with a couple of small career breaks along the way. My work involved extensive national and international travel and I enjoyed being immersed in the local cultures of Europe, the USA, the middle east and Asia.

I have used all of these experiences to broaden my cultural horizons.

Although I have mainly learned and worked in a technical engineering environment, I have always gravitated towards friends who are largely from an Arts background be that music, literary or visual fields.

I enjoy photography and painting as well as producing and playing music. Where time has allowed, I have played in punk, indie, metal and grunge bands over the years.

I left engineering about 5 years ago. The main reason for this is that I just wasn't enjoying it anymore. Over the years the role of the engineer has become less creative, less hands-on and become more about financial management and outsourcing of risk. I am hoping that an artistic future for me will give me back that creative hands on feeling and the possibility of once more seeing my ideas through from the creative spark to completed projects.

For the past 5 years I have worked on a casual basis (0-2 days per week) driving minibuses for a local community transport charity. We provide transport for people with disabilities in order that they can go about their business in a normal as manor as possible. I find this work rewarding and I hope that the flexible nature of my part-time workload and the flexibility of a distance learning course should gel together well. My wife works in education and the organisation that I work for is comfortable with me taking all of the school holiday times off. This enables us to travel extensively and photography is always an important part of our holiday.

I first became interested in photography when I was eight years old. I was given an instamatic 126 camera for xmas and before long my father gave me an old 35mm Voigtländer Vito B which had a great lens. My father had upgraded to a twin lens reflex camera. At age 14, I had a Saturday job in a local camera shop. As well as getting to know a lot of hardware, I received a good staff discount which enabled me to buy a second hand Nikon F2A, a new Olympus OM1 and a Durst F30 enlarger based darkroom.

I used this equipment to do some wedding and graduation photography in the early 1980s as a way of supplementing my poor apprentice wage.

At some point adult life responsibilities took over and I sold most of my gear and I used compacts for a few years which I still like and use often for reasons of availability and portability. About 7 years ago I bought a Sony DSLR which I am still currently using. I went for the Sony on the basis of the availability of excellent value secondhand Minolta lenses. I have a 50mm f1.4 prime, an old but very good Minolta 'beercan' telephoto zoom and a Tamron 90mm macro lens. I use a PC running Windows 7 for processing and use Photoshop 7.0 and Microsoft Office 2002 SP3.

I like to tackle all types of photographic genres but feel most comfortable with landscapes. I enjoy the immersive and meditative nature of the process and the resulting images.

In the future, I would like to be in a position where I can sell my work commercially. It is difficult for 'outsider art' to break through and I hope that a successful completion of a BA degree program will help me with that goal.