About

Take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but journey histories;

Walk softly, and carry a big lightsaber.

Hi, I’m Gemma Thomson (soft ‘g’, as in ‘giraffe’; pronouns ‘she/her’). I’m a British-born game designer, currently living in Sweden. Photography is an important hobby of mine, and I typically shoot railways, street scenes and events — for fun, and to chronicle my adventures.

I started out taking plenty of snaps in my childhood, as many do — using either disposable film cameras, or shooting on Polaroid. After a brief stint using a Sony Cybershot DSC-P200 camera (mostly to capture textures and other references for 3D artwork), I started engaging with photos as an art form with an Olympus VH-510. This point-and-click camera accounts for most of my early railway shots.

Nowadays I use an Olympus OM-D compact mirrorless camera, with lenses ranging between 17mm, 14-42mm and 45-200mm. I try to focus on sight lines and decorative details when shooting railways and street scenes, and I prefer to keep light and shadow as they were when I saw the scene with my own eyes.

Some of my photos feed in to another hobby of mine: scrapbooking. I also share plenty via the likes of Twitter and Instagram, and have contributed photos to games events including Nordic Game Indie Night, LadyCADE and other conference fringe events.

Instagram Feed

[instagram-feed]

On “Fotosaoid”

As a Brit of Scottish descent with some loosely-defined neo-pagan leanings, I have taken a keen interest in gàidhlig (Scots Gaelic) language and culture. As such, a name like this felt like a natural fit for this gallery site. It means “photo-journey” or “photo-track” in English, referring simply to my consideration of photography in the journeys I take, be they epic or small.