Actually, I am just a very ordinary happily married family man aged 66 with three grown-up children. My wife, Anne, and I have three grandchildren and two on the way. Family comes first in my life!
After family, CREATIVITY is by far the biggest single driving force in my life.
After a varied career that changed from engineering to wood-crafts & sculpture and, circumstances that led me to study full-time, as a mature student, Management & Administration, I completed my career path as a Senior Lecturer in Management & Management Consultant in Education, Industry & Commerce. I retired in 1998 (owing to ill-health) and was inactive for about 80% of each day until about 10 years ago when I was diagnosed with a serious heart condition that required a pacemaker implant. This made a significant improvement to my life and I was able to study full-time again, this time art & design for pure selfish pleasure. In 2006 I gained the Scottish Higher National Certificate in Art & Design with Distinctions.
At the end of 2006 I began experiencing severe spinal problems and was diagnosed with Spinal Osteochondritis, and in 2013 I was diagnosed with Diabetes, Peripheral Neuropathy and Macular Degeneration.
The reason I tell you this is not for sympathy but rather to put into perspective the reason I love Smart Photo Editor (SPE). My joy in using SPE stems from the fact that it has opened the door to my creativity and allowed me to achieve a great deal of personal satisfaction as I use it to create Photo-Art. Because of my circumstances, I have been able to devote a lot of my time to learning to get the best out of the program. I believe in sharing, so the fact that Smart Photo Editor is a community powered editing program means that I have adopted the community philosophy easily. At my age and stage, I have absolutely no commercial interest in the art work I produce. My thrill comes from simply creating it using a number of programs, but, by far, Smart Photo Editor is my favourite.
Sharing brings its own rewards – it is very satisfying to see contributed effects being used by artists and photographers in the creation of unique and individual artworks. Today, I have contributed over 3,000 effects and that number is growing (many more in the pipeline). Creating new effects gives me a real buzz and provides a real sense of purpose and worth, so often lacking in people of my age.
It was my privilege to make over 40 video SPE tutorials for Anthropics, the company behind the program, and I am honoured to be given the opportunity to offer my experience to you by means of this blog.
Although hosted by Anthropics on the Smart Photo Editor Website, my blog is based on my views and experiences. The blog offers insights from an independent user’s perspective and the essence is to share my personal experience working with SPE to create photo-art. The views expressed are my own.
I do not really like to consider myself as an expert, but over the years I have developed knowledge that I think you might find useful.
Looking forward to sharing with you as the months go by.
Regards,
Andrew