My name is Chris Thomas and I live in Barry, which is a seaside town in the county of the Vale of Glamorgan, in the UK, and welcome to my website!
The whole concept of me having my own website was something that just happened one day. Never before had I shown any interest whatsoever in any aspect of wanting to do something like this. Many friends had created websites, but few with any sense of direction, so I never saw the point of doing one for the sake of doing one. I’d done a bit of website development in work, but never for myself. I think the idea began when my uncle had uploaded a few pictures to the Pbase system, and had shown them to me. It seemed an ideal and professional way to present and show people photographs without having the need to email them lots of files. The bonus part was that I didn’t need to know a vast amount of web design coding, as I could simply upload images into the system. Visit www.pbase.com/aviator to see my uncle’s photograph galleries. I got hooked pretty quick to Pbase, and soon realised that I didn’t want my galleries to look the same as everyone else’s, so I designed my own graphics, which I have recently revamped, and learnt how to create and modify style sheets in PBase, with a few titbits of HTML code to make my pages look unique.
I have been very interested in art and photography for many years now, since studying it at school, and really enjoy taking photographs whenever I can. I suppose I first became interested in photography at a younger age when I would watch my grandfather develop black and white photographs in his home built dark room. He was a talented man of many skills, of which photography was just one. I can remember watching and thinking it was magic the way the image would appear on the photographic paper as it was soaking in the developer. Later, at high school, I continued my interest in photography as a subject and studied it at both GCSE and A Level. It was there that I learnt a lot more about it, a lot of practical photography, the history of the subject and how to develop and process both black and white and colour photographs.
As a career, presently I have the pleasure of working with a wonderful team of colleagues supporting IT in the schools in our authority, where we provide technical support and assistance in every aspect of modern day information technology. I have also been teaching Adult Education classes in the evenings at a local high school for the last ten years, where I have taught a variety of computer classes including Microsoft Office, Corel Draw and now currently Digital Photography and PC Maintenance. Those attending my nightclasses will find the Nightclass Resources section of this site very useful, as there are a variety of downloads available, plus a whole host of other related information and advice, and for the very latest information checkout the entries in my new blog.
My interests naturally include digital photography and computers, but I enjoy country walking with my good friends Rachel and Richard. I originally met Rachel through my night classes; she was a student in the first class I ever taught, Microsoft Office 2000. Rachel and her husband Richard have in recent years been kind enough to welcome me on several of their fascinating walks through the countryside of the Vale of Glamorgan. Never did I imagine that we had so much beautiful scenery literally on our doorstep, and would have been none the wiser had it not been for the two of them and their kindness, and as a result, we have become very close friends.
Other interests of mine include playing video games, watching films and television programmes. I have had several video games consoles over the years and currently have a Nintendo Wii and a Microsoft Xbox 360 which I occasionally play on against various friends such as Ceri, Tommy and another friend Richard (when he is back in town). Games that I am currently playing are: Street Fighter IV, Split Second and Just Cause 2. When it comes to television programmes I tend to enjoy comedy shows, documentaries and murder-mystery thrillers. I am also a fan of retro shows from the 1980s such as Knight Rider, Miami Vice, The A-Team, A.L.F., Magnum PI and many others of which I have DVD box sets. Apart from these, I do enjoy watching the new Hawaii Five-0, and do enjoy a good murder mystery story, and favourite shows (for which I get a lot of stick) are Murder She Wrote and Midsomer Murders. As to films, one of my all time favourite stories is the Star Wars saga. I had just started school when the first of the films came out, so the hype surrounding the film was huge, you couldn’t miss it - you were no-one unless you had a Darth Vader T-Shirt or a Luke Skywalker haircut! I had all the toys and various associated merchandise as a child, most of which I still have today in the attic, and am still an avid collector of the books and many collectibles from the films. Other films I am a big fan of are the Back to the Future trilogy, and any of the James Bond films, especially the ones starring Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan.
When the weather is good, and I get motivated enough, I do also enjoy the occasional cycle ride on my mountain bike – but definitely weather permitting, and not as much these days as I should! That being said, I have just bought myself a new one, so there is no excuse now, and rest assured that wherever it takes me, the camera is bound to be not far behind!
The Photo Galleries that I have here online (hosted by Pbase.com) are a wide and varied collection of photographs taken in the last few years with my various digital cameras, as they have changed and advanced over the years. A lot of them are simple snapshots and happy memories, but there are some that I am really pleased with and I hope you enjoy them too - and if you do, your comments in my guestbook are always really appreciated.
If you want to contact me, you can email me at chrisjthomas@gmail.com or add me to Windows Live Messenger and we can have a chat online at some stage!
Enjoy your visit to my site...
