Mary obtained her first SLR on going to Botswana. This was in the eighties when there were no photographers, no photography shops, no processing and no information such as the internet. Eventually, with the aid of a photographic handbook and procurement from neighbouring South Africa, she created her own darkroom, and a photographic jack-of-all-trades business grew from there.
Every type of photography, from wildlife in the Okavango, official events, family portraits, advertising, site work for calendars and company reports. Every conceivable situation, down mines, up cranes or leaning out of small planes etc; but her most enjoyable work was constructing darkrooms and teaching photography and darkroom skills to the national museum to produce archives and to newspapers to produce photojournalists. She also regularly contributed to a library in UK that sold her images.
Into the Okavango
Thirteen years later, on returning to UK, family and professional life took over (as a therapist and trainer in Speech and Language Therapy). Photography came to the fore again during the Covid lockdown and retirement. Mary belongs to her local camera club and the RPS, with an ARPS distinction (Associate of the Royal Photographic Society).