Copyright © Wolverhampton Photographic Society 2024
Supported by the National Lottery
No image or design on this site may be copied or used in printed or digital form without permission and all photographs remain the property and copyright of the original photographer.
My involvement with photography has ebbed and flowed. In my professional life it has been a useful communication device helping to explain difficult concepts to those who find technical issues a challenge. From my late teens to early thirty’s I was a keen rock climber/mountain walker and my Pentax SLR, loaded with either Ektachrome or Fujichrome slide film, was a means of creating a memory bank of people and places both in the UK and the Alps. I always used slide film, or transparencies, but with its very limited exposure latitude it was a great educator and made sure I got my camera settings correct or it meant I potentially wasted a lot of very expensive film. With the arrival of a mortgage, marriage and a career my photography went onto the back-burner but this changed ten years ago when, following the loss of my wife to a rare cancer, I went on a photo-safari to the Masai Mara. This was intended to be a ‘one off’ but to date I’ve been to the Mara six times! I’ve been on other trips too, including a couple to Samburu in northern Kenya, to Bandhavghr in India to photograph tigers and the Camargue in the Rhone Delta to photograph the white horses. I’ve also taken numerous trips within the UK so I can now safely say that my photography is definitely off that back-burner. As a classic car enthusiast photographing motor sport was a natural expansion for me and, because the gear required is pretty much the same, I also like to photograph a wider range of sports. The initial trip to the Masai Mara highlighted a need to upgrade my camera gear and ten years ago the options were easy – Nikon or Canon, though it’s not so straightforward these days! I opted for Nikon as they have over a hundred years experience making high-end optical devices and it shows in the exceptional quality of their lenses, plus I knew from my professional life they made the best bench microscopes, so their cameras should be good too. Joining WPS was one of my better decisions but I’m still a ‘new boy’ having been a member for just two years. Here then are some of my ’Desert Island Images’ and I hope you find them interesting.
Wolverhampton Photographic Society Members’ Galleries
WPS logo John E Donlon Photographer in Focus
Photographs on this page are Copyright © John E Donlon
Click on a photo to view it larger and see a slide-show of the images on this page
Nikon D7000 :  300mm, 1/1000sec, f/11, ISO-640, -0.3 step Nikon D7200 :  195mm, 1/1250sec, f/8, ISO-640, 0 step Nikon D90 :  330mm, 1/1600sec, f/8, ISO-1000, -0.3 step Nikon D7000 :  270mm, 1/3000sec, f/9.5, ISO-1250, 0 step Nikon D7000 :  360mm, 1/250sec, f/8, ISO-1250, 0 step Nikon D7200 :  300mm, 1/2500sec, f/7.1, ISO-800, 0 step Nikon D7000 :  400mm, 1/1250sec, f/10, ISO-640, -0.3 step Nikon D90 :  400mm, 1/800sec, f/8, ISO-400, -0.3 step Nikon D7100 :  240mm, 1/2500sec, f/8, ISO-800, 0 step Nikon D7100 :  120mm, 1/1000sec, f/9, ISO-500, 0 step
Just a Catlick
Lilac Breasted Roller
On the Limit
Duel in the Dust
Battle of the Titans
White Horses in the Camargue
Crossing the Mara River
Eye Contact in the Mara
Anticipation
Future Olympian
Copyright © Wolverhampton Photographic Society 2018
Supported by the National Lottery
No image or design on this site may be copied or used in printed form or digitally without permission and all photographs remain the property and copyright of the original photographer.
My involvement with photography has ebbed and flowed. In my professional life it has been a useful communication device helping to explain difficult concepts to those who find technical issues a challenge. From my late teens to early thirty’s I was a keen rock climber/mountain walker and my Pentax SLR, loaded with either Ektachrome or Fujichrome slide film, was a means of creating a memory bank of people and places both in the UK and the Alps. I always used slide film, or transparencies, but with its very limited exposure latitude it was a great educator and made sure I got my camera settings correct or it meant I potentially wasted a lot of very expensive film. With the arrival of a mortgage, marriage and a career my photography went onto the back-burner but this changed ten years ago when, following the loss of my wife to a rare cancer, I went on a photo- safari to the Masai Mara. This was intended to be a ‘one off’ but to date I’ve been to the Mara six times! I’ve been on other trips too, including a couple to Samburu in northern Kenya, to Bandhavghr in India to photograph tigers and the Camargue in the Rhone Delta to photograph the white horses. I’ve also taken numerous trips within the UK so I can now safely say that my photography is definitely off that back-burner. As a classic car enthusiast photographing motor sport was a natural expansion for me and, because the gear required is pretty much the same, I also like to photograph a wider range of sports. The initial trip to the Masai Mara highlighted a need to upgrade my camera gear and ten years ago the options were easy – Nikon or Canon, though it’s not so straightforward these days! I opted for Nikon as they have over a hundred years experience making high-end optical devices and it shows in the exceptional quality of their lenses, plus I knew from my professional life they made the best bench microscopes, so their cameras should be good too. Joining WPS was one of my better decisions but I’m still a ‘new boy’ having been a member for just two years. Here then are some of my ’Desert Island Images’ and I hope you find them interesting.
Photographer in Focus John E Donlon
Photographs on this page are Copyright © John E Donlon
Click on a photo to view it larger and see a slide-show of the images on this page
Nikon D7000 :  300mm, 1/1000sec, f/11, ISO-640, -0.3 step Nikon D7200 :  195mm, 1/1250sec, f/8, ISO-640, 0 step Nikon D7000 :  270mm, 1/3000sec, f/9.5, ISO-1250, 0 step Nikon D7000 :  360mm, 1/250sec, f/8, ISO-1250, 0 step Nikon D7200 :  300mm, 1/2500sec, f/7.1, ISO-800, 0 step Nikon D7000 :  400mm, 1/1250sec, f/10, ISO-640, -0.3 step Nikon D90 :  400mm, 1/800sec, f/8, ISO-400, -0.3 step Nikon D7100 :  240mm, 1/2500sec, f/8, ISO-800, 0 step Nikon D7100 :  120mm, 1/1000sec, f/9, ISO-500, 0 step
Just a Catlick
Lilac Breasted Roller
On the Limit
Duel in the Dust
Battle of the Titans
White Horses in the Camargue
Crossing the Mara River
Eye Contact in the Mara
Anticipation
Future Olympian
Nikon D90 :  330mm, 1/1600sec, f/8, ISO-1000, -0.3 step
Wolverhampton Photographic Society