I thought for my first blog entry I should at least tell you a little about myself and how Image North Queensland came about.

I was born and raised in the UK. My father was – and still is – a mad keen photographer and I used to spend hours flicking through photo albums from his and Mum’s early years. Dad had all the gear too, so we could just about do anything from rolling our own film cassettes to printing our own creations, or mounting slides. We still joke about the post-holiday slide shows we used to put our friends and family through!

When I left school and went looking for work, I found I had a natural affinity for Information Technology, so before long I was on the road to a 20+ year career. It was these skills that opened up a chance for Marylyn (my amazing wife) and I to seek out adventure and a new life here in Australia and how we came to make Townsville our home.

Although never far away, my camera took a back seat until an opportunity opened up for me to start a Real Estate Photography business in Cairns. That was in 2009 and I haven’t looked back since. The magic of photography came flooding back to me and I this came through in my work. The business was a great success and I even managed to pick up a couple of awards, but we missed our friends in Townsville and decided to make a move back home.

We took the long way home though and spent a few months exploring this great country in our 4WD. But before long, it was time to get back to the real world of mortgages and bills. I got a ‘real job’ working in a 4WD accessory store for a year whilst I worked out what I was going to do next. I really wanted to get back to photography, but it isn’t all glitz and glamour and the prospect of photo retouching until the early hours every night was a real negative for me. That and the minutiae of running your own business made it less and less appealing.

I rang a friend of mine, also a photographer, and asked him how he dealt with these issues and he told me I needed to talk to Paul and Josef at iMAGECLOUD.

This was the missing piece of the puzzle! Just about every element that concerned me about relaunching my photography career could be met head-on by iMAGECLOUD. A one-stop-shop for independent photographers, they take the hassle out of running a photography business and give us the freedom to do what we do best. Better yet, the way their services are structured, I can pick and choose only what I need.

I was already committed before I received the sign-up paperwork and, amazingly, I was up and running and delivering photos to clients within a matter of days.

So here we are. 2014. A new business, exciting opportunities and amazing prospects.

The sky really is the limit … watch this space.