Photographer Of the Week: Kerioak (Christine)

Photographer of the Week this week is Kerioak, or Christine Nichols. Being camera shy, there's no photographic evidence she really exists but thanks for being our Photographer of the Week Christine!

Many thanks Fotolia for inviting me to be a Photographer of the Week, I am honoured to accept.

As you can see my name is Christine Nichols, I live in a beautiful part of the South East of England with my husband and Dobermanns - my alternative name of Kerioak came about as this is my kennel name. I have three main hobbies, computing, training my dogs and photography and can now combine all three into one, especially when using my dogs as models - one, Maverick, is particularly keen and as soon as she sees me setting out the camera and tripod she will sit in front of it as if to say "how would you like me?"

I have had cameras for as long as I can remember and have boxes and boxes of snapshots but I got seriously interested in photography when I wanted to start taking quality images of my dogs. After a lot of thought and handling various cameras I eventually settled on a Canon Eos 350d as my first SLR camera in December 2005, and it has hardly been out of my hands since as I have learned more and more about using it. I take photos of almost anything and it is rare I come home without at least a couple of of images, such as the time I was out with a friend and there was a strange smell coming from the engine, opened the bonnet to find smoke pouring from the battery - you will find this image in my portfolio on Fotolia. It is amazing how additictive photography can become when you have a company like Fotolia encouraging you.

I came across Fotolia in January 2006 and, after following nearly all the links on the site and reading as much about stock photography as I could, I started uploading images a few days later. Much to my astonishment they were accepted and I had my first sale a few weeks later. By July I had sold enough images to reach the Bronze level which gave me a tremendous boost to keep uploading better and better images. Unfortunately I had a few mobility problems this year which ended up in recently spinal surgery and treatment for my hip, this slowed my photography down a tad! The upside though is that I have learnt more about the computing side of imagery and have started creating illustrations and fractals as well as photographs. It also meant I had time to spend in the forums and have tried to help out there where I can with the newer members' queries. I am now getting out and about again and am able to continue with my aim at becoming one of Fotolia's top photographers.

One of my favourite images is which I shot specifically and exclusively for Fotolia customers. I have some of her on grass with the laptop, but felt that an isolated image would be much more useful as a concept - guarding breed, security, computer, internet, protection, learning, education (keywords also become a bit of an addiction as you can see)

Another favourite is

all fresh, healthy fruit, vegetables and herbs and the rest of this series which were great fun to shoot, arrange and finally eat!

I'm sure photographers at Fotolia would like to wish Christine continued stock photography sales and success ... and may her ever willing models never tire of the posing!

Thank you Christine (Kerioak!)

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