Keith Houghton Photography Ltd

Background

Born in England at a very young age, shortly after Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II took to the throne. Number 4 in the pecking order, I was brought up with a good sense of family values, seven sisters, a dog and a budgie. Life may not have been easy, but it was good, our house backed onto farmers fields, parkland and our very own river to explore. We would leave at daybreak and sometimes be home before dark, how did we survive?

I attended ‘the school of hard knocks’, (they later changed the name to Highlands), in Essex. (Looking back, grade 7 was the best 3 years of my childhood). After graduating, I was accepted into the North East Essex Technical College & School of Art to study photography, two excellent years later I was thrown out into the real world with a piece of paper and the worldly knowledge of an eighteen year old, life was great.

A job found me in London, at a studio in Dalston, (finally I get to leave Essex), there, I was told to forget everything I had been taught about photography, this is the way we do it in the real world, (so much for the piece of paper). One excellent addition to this job was to meet a good buddy, Arthur, always one with an interesting point of view.

Times change and move on, I was offered a job as a photographer on board a cruise ship called ‘The Naverino”. I jumped at the chance, sailing around the Med’ and getting paid for it, I had a great time, that is until the ship sunk in Pirreus harbour which I had nothing to do with.

After a little shore leave, I was moved onto another ship in the Caribbean, the Çosta Carla’, this was more like it, great weather, palm trees white beaches and a constant party atmosphere. This is where I met a young dental hygienist called Kathy, (the plot thickens), who, as it turns out, had her own new car, fur coat and diamond earrings, (don’t ever call me stupid), after spending a short time together, we married and moved to her home town, Toronto. And she is still putting up with me.

After a couple of years working for studios in Toronto, Kathy told me to get a real job, I told her no, I wanted to stay with Photography, so I started Keith Houghton Photography Ltd. That was in March, 1985 and we’ve been going strong ever since.

Just a little bit of trivia, and more proof how small this world is, after we had been married a few years, one of those old, small suitcases surfaced at Kathy’s parents house, it had an old travel destination sticker with the name of the ship they traveled to Canada on, ‘The Gripsholm”, the original name of the Navarino.

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