I meet my hero.

St. Mary's Lighthouse pre-dawn
Originally uploaded by thefatcat44

It fnally happened. I met my hero, Mr. David Noton, no less.

I took last Monday off work and with my friend, Carl, headed off to the NEC at Birmingham for the 'Focus on Imaging' Show. The show is designed to relieve you of the maximum amount of cash in the shortest possible time in exchange for some very tasty additions to your camera kit.

Needless to say, I contributed to the income of several companies while there. Firstly to Jacobs, who were doing an impossible to resisit offer on SD memory cards. This was within 30 seconds of entering the show!

My other purchases were courtesy of Lee Filters. As regular readers of my blog will know, I rely on their superb range of filters and loudly proclaim the benefits to all who will listen. It was this purchase that led to meeting said Mr. Noton.

David is sponsored by Lee and was spending some time during the day on their stand. As it happened, when I visited to buy the lusicrously expensive 105mm polarizing filter and holder, he happened to be present.

I pounced and asked him if I could pick his brains. David was a willing teacher and very kindly gave us five minutes of his time to answer my questions on spot metering for ND Grad use and how to process RAW files. His advice has been put into practise already and yielded results. So, thank you, David (how is now in Laos on a photography trip accoring to his newsletter - tough job!). I really appreciated your help and friendly advice. It has confirmed my desire to book one of his expensive but probably superb courses when funds allow.

I also got to shake his hand. I haven't washed it since, hoping that maybe some unknown skill has passed to my shutter finger and my photo's may be elevated to a new, higher plane.

Make sure you take a look at his website at www.davidnoton.com and sign up for his newsletter.