Hello and welcome to my website... I'm an amateur photographer based in North Wales and this site has been created to enable to me to show off a bit.

If you're wondering where the name for the site comes from, I have one other interest besides photography. I try to spend whatever time I can on the beach flying traction kites and my first 'proper' kite was called a 'Spirit'. Because of this I created the username 'Spiritflier' to use on certain photography and kiting forums.

On this site, I'll be creating a kind of personal showcase for the images I've taken since I've rediscovered my passion for photography. You'll find that the site is split up into different categories. Please bear in mind that some images will fall into more than one so you may find one or two where you may not have thought immediately obvious.

All of the images on here have been (and will be) taken with one of three cameras. My first is a Canon EOS 400D digital SLR and the second is a Canon A640 Powershot compact camera for those times when it's not really convenient or practical to drag the big 'un out. As of April this year, I've upgraded the EOS 400D and now shoot primarily on the Canon EOS 40D so the 400D is now officially my 'second' body and it's also being used by my daughter to good effect.

All of these images on here have been resized. This is for two reasons. The main one concerns the use of the images I've taken... I'm happy and flattered if anyone wants to use any of them for any purpose but please ask me first and I'll pass on a full sized copy - I might not even charge you for it! If you make money from it, don't forget to send me some! Secondly, not everyone is using broadband yet and it's a swine when you've got to wait ages for a page to load; so with that in mind, these images will be a fair bit smaller than originally taken.

I started out when I was about 13 or 14 I think when my mum bought me an Olympus XA1 35mm compact camera. If I remember correctly, it was one of the first 'proper' compacts. From there I made a big leap up to an Olympus OM1n SLR which was given to me by my grandfather. From there I stayed with Olympus having owned almost everything from the OM2n right through to the OM4. I've dabbled a fair bit over the years but after Olympus brought out the awful OM101 and OM707, I switched to Canon and never looked back. Having said that, I like the look of the new Olympus DSLR's so I may add one at some point purely for nostalgic reasons.

A lot of years have gone by and photography's taken a back seat for most of 'em. Christmas 2006 saw me playing with a friends' Canon EOS 400D and the bug bit again - hard! By the end of January 2007, I had my own and the usual downward spiral of hobby vs. income began all over again in earnest!

I've learnt a lot since I started getting behind a camera again. The biggest benefits of shooting digital are easy to see... It's so much easier to experiment and the cost and time savings are considerable too.

I have a variety of post-processing tools which I try to use to best effect. Most of the images contained on this site have been tweaked with either Adobe Photoshop CS3 or my old faithful copy of PaintShop Pro7.

Anyway, you haven't come here to read my inane ramblings, you've come to see if I'm any good with a camera.

So help yourself and I hope you find at least one image that you can relate to in some way.

Many thanks for visiting,

Best wishes,

Si