Hey hey, good Steemians, I'd like to say hello to you all and introduce myself if I may.
My name is Martin Sanders, and I live in Nottingham in the UK. I'm a creative, working mostly in street/art/social documentary photography and also as a blues/bluesy musician, performing regularly both solo and with my band and manage the best I can to get by on what I can earn from the two, along with some juggling .............. of bills, not balls, that is, lol.
I hope the above photo helps verify me, if you look at my music videos or fb profile pics you can see that I am one and the same. :)
A good friend of mine and fellow steemian popped up on one of my fb photography posts, and simply said "you should post this stuff on steem". This is the photograph, posted a few days ago that inspired my mate to make the suggestion. The photograph was taken way back whilst studying at college, it's a scan from an original 16 x 12 inch print that I made in 1982!!! Unfortunately the negatives are long since lost during a big life change 15 or so years ago.
Well, I'll be honest, I'd never heard of Steemit.com until then. I wasn't surprised I'd never heard of it either though, as such things do seem pretty much unheard of to most creatives, an uncensored, self curated platform with many like minds, where we can share our work and ideas, seek feedback from each other, and on top of that there is a chance to earn (real!!) money passively if enough people enjoy what you're putting out there. "No, no, that can't be possibly be true, surely?".............. well yes it's clear to see that it is indeed possible. I don't hold too high an expectation there, but if you good people here do like my photography posts enough to make my day to day living any easier or it helps contribute towards my next equipment spend (lenses), that would be pretty freakin amazing!!
I've been shooting photographs with a strong passion for well over 3 decades now, I studied the craft at college in the early 80's, and I still mostly spend over 80 hours a week on and around my photography. I'm a proper addict to it and use the camera in virtually ALL aspects of my existance, I'm rarely without one at any time. I'm quite voyeuristic in my approach, especially in my street photography, but also in other work such as my ongoing series, 'photographie de l'erotique'. I've been posting my work in groups on fb for a while now and have built up a following of between 5 - 6,000 including my 'photography' page. www.facebook.com/martinsandersphotography . Much of my work on my personal page is publicly available too at www.facebook.com/martin.sanders.739 .
For anyone who has a bit of geek in them for camera gear, I'm now working mostly with Fuji X cameras, namely the x100s and the Xpro2. I just have the one lens for the Xpro2 so far, but it's gem of a glass, the XF16mm f1.4. I still have some of my canon gear, which I kept for the very occasional need for a quality long telephoto, and I've also been getting back into Polaroid emulsion transfers and manipulations using the Impossible Projects films.
Anyway, I hope you get to know and like my photography work over time, and that many of us become acquainted in the process. Here's a link to a youtube video I made of a selection of my photography, the accompanying music was found amongst youtubes free to use selection and reminds me a little of the theme tune to the TV series MASH. It can be viewed in HD1080
You never know you might just dig my blues music too, I hope so. Here's a youtube link to my own arrangement of Cocaine (all around my brain). HD1080 quality.
Here's a photo taken more recently at the Nottingham Goose Fair.
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Thanks very much for reading through my introduction, I look forward to regularly posting photographs and catching up with what you guys are posting up here at steemit.
Please hit up the follow button, and if you like what you see in my work I'd be very grateful for any comments, votes and 'upvoting' action.
Best regards for now, Martin.