In my case I've been involved in photography at various levels since the 1960's, in the 70's I worked for a student newspaper on occasions and was shooting portraits and models portfolios. Then I worked full time for a specialist photographic company and just shots slides while out walking and rock bands for fun.
A complete change in direction work-wise in 1986 freed me up photographically and I began shooting more landscapes concentrating on large format work I realised quite quickly that I was shooting Industrial landscapes (out in the countryside) and settled on a definite project, photographing the abandoned Leominster to Stourport Canal, culminating in an exhibition at the MAC in Birmingham. I was still shooting elsewhere and other projects began to come together. A chance visit to an area in the Black Country one evening with a friend after work made me realise I wanted to work in an urban setting and that night decided to spend 5 years putting together a large project. 5 years later with some funding from West Midlands Arts the work (65 images) was shown at Wednesbury Art Gallery, although some of the work in progress had been shown at the MAC and Bond Gallery in Birmingham, and also on the walls of the West Midlands Arts building.
So this was finding what I enjoyed and a sharing of it through photography, I felt I needed to contextualise my work further and had decided I wanted to do an MA in Photography but first I went and studied Industrial Archaeology at Birmingham University with modules at the Ironbridge Institute, going on to do my MA about 3 years later.
Moving to Turkey in 2006 I began shooting in classical Archaeological landscapes and found a real enjoyment just being at these sites and began working towards another large exhibition, however the first two exhibitions (in Turkey) have had to be postponed as we had to return to the UK for family reasons. After discussions with the first gallery I decided to combine work made around the Aegean contrasting it with work shot in the Tin mining areas of Cornwall, might sound odd but the images work together.
It is about having fun combining interests I still shoot the odd rock bands live, this goes in phases though, I nearly burnt out 2004/6 when I was often shooting 3 or 4 bands 3 nights a week and on odd occasions 2 venues a night, all day at festivals etc.
Ian