About
Royden was born in New Zealand and came to Canada in 1970.
He grew up on sheep farms, and later on a dairy farm, and in that setting developed an early interest in photography starting with a Kodak Brownie camera at 11 years of age.
In his teens, he converted his mother's pantry into a dark room for film development and contact printing. Wanting to expand his horizon, for his high school woodworking class project he designed and built an enlarger primarily in wood. It worked just fine in that pantry for a number of years amidst exploding ginger beer bottles.
His productivity in photography waxed and waned over the years in concert with work and family commitments. His lifelong interest has resurfaced with the coming of the digital age over analog photography. Mostly self-taught, he enjoys the freedom that digital photography has to offer. Royden savours the development process starting with capture in RAW file format onwards through post-processing to the fine art of producing a worthy print.
He also appreciates the expanded freedom of expression that current long exposure, focus stacking and high dynamic range (HDR) technology facilitate. For the delivery end, it is a pleasure to be living in a period that makes available inkjet printers of wide gamut and high resolution, and an ever increasing range of archival quality photo papers. In Kiwi terms, it's a Pavlova Paradise, the Pavlova being the queen of all desserts in down-under folklore.
The current gear of choice is a Canon 40D, a Canon 5D MkII, a recently added Canon 5Ds and a variety of compatible Canon and Tokina lenses, a Hero GoPro 3 and an Epson Stylus Pro 7900 printer with the Epson Ultrachrome HDR ink set.
Royden lives in Vancouver, BC with his wife, Iris, and their Labradoodle, Gilby. Their two sons, Christopher and Ryan, with their partners Shauna & Kate, and children, Hunter and Athena & Selene, live nearby.
May 2017