I'm on dial-up for the next couple of hours so I'll check out your site, etc, when the pages 'll load better, faster. However, I've some of your work in the past and have admired your eye for a great shot.
Hehe, I've heard people say that photography is not an art, "ya just push the button and there it is.", but I just push the button and there it isn't... zip, nada... oh, that looks like my thumb. Even when I take my time and try to take a half decent shot I never seems to get quite what I was looking for... and while you might enjoy editing, I take one look and think "there are some things you just can't fix".
I recall this school excursion one time, and how we mistakenly ended up right next door to a nudist beach, and me and all my mates with our new Kodak Instamatics. My mates ended up looking at pictures boobies, I ended up with my thumb and other appendages that just made schoolboy me feel so inferior. It was so deflating... and, truly, I WAS aiming at the same things they were.
Nah, I'm not quite that bad, but I'm a bit like my mother. Neither of us seem to capture that great shot everyone comments on, whereas my sister manages to do so with the greatest of ease at every family photo opportunity, like she is a natural talent. That's why I disagree with those people who discount photography as an art, there is much more to it than pointing the camera and just clicking away.
As for the excursion and the 'accidental' nudist beach, we were going to see some historical caves that were used by pirates and the headmaster, upon realising what was unmissably before us, confiscated all our cameras before we got off the bus, hurried us past the 'offending' area, returned them so we could photograph the caves, and re-confiscated them until the bus had returned to the school. However, one boy had a camera that was small and easily hidden in his blazer pocket. He managed to get in a few 'sketchy' booby snaps that he showed off to students who didn't go on the excursion... until they were confiscated, that is, and prior to his caning.
Ah, the things we did as boys.
Anyway, all the best with your photography, Dave, and hopefully it can one day be that full-time job you'd like.
Oh, and about the long post, my mother always said I could talk the leg off an iron pot.