I first got interested in photography in 1995 when I was brought a simple film camera with fixed focus and automatic flash. With the camera I took mainly 'snapshot' photos like the one to the right. In 2001 I got my first Digital camera, on a very poor budget I got a Fujifilm DX-7 for about £100, which featured about 300k pixels (about the same as a cheap £20 digicam nowadays) and it used 4 'AA' batteries at a time.

In 2003 I purchased a Samsung Digimax 360 for about £170, it featured 3.2Mpixels and an optical zoom of 3x, it was Semi-automatic which meant I could change the ISO speed and EV settings but it was autofocus which meant it was hard to get a macro shot as it would tend to focus on the background and there was no manual focus, I did manage to take some good macro shots with it, the Loch Ronald photo was taken using it.

The Stillwave name came from an idea to use an oxymoron
in the naming of my website (a Still Wave).
Before this name my site was called BAWF, which was an Abbreviation for Ben Ashley's Website Freedom.

Because this site is a hobby there are NO ADVERTS on the site, something which I am proud of due to the fact that nowadays even homepages seem to have ads on them.

I wanted the website to look neat, modern & consistent not only throughout the site but with other sites as well but, I also wanted it to look different at the same time.

The main reason for creating a website at the start was to share with others what I had learned about web design
and so I started making a few tutorials and tips pages.

In the summer of 2003 I decided to use the website for another of my hobbies, Photography, Landscapes in particular.
I have a large range which I only showed to a relatively small number of people.