AT THE age of just eight, Kenneth Ball was given his first camera.

It was just a point and shoot Kodak, nothing like the digital technology of today's modern era, but Mr Ball was hooked.

By the age of 11, he had converted the laundry in his parents' suburban 1950s Sydney home into a darkroom, complete with chemicals, film and paper, and so began what was to become a lifelong obsession with photography.

"I thought it was pretty magic you could see something and record it on film,” Mr Ball said.

"I was captivated by it.”

Just three years later, at the age of 14, he left school to join the St George Leader as a photographer where he worked on a freelance basis.

Later, he moved to Dubbo and by the age of 23 was the chief photographer at the Valley Liberal, in the days when photographers had to lug heavy 5” x 4” Speed Graphics around and had just two shots at snapping their image.

"You daren't make a mistake; you took the photo the editor wanted you to do or if not, you just hoped he liked what you did,” Mr Ball remembered.

"In those days, you had to go back to the darkroom and develop your own photos, proof them and make the blocks for the printers.”

He later worked at some of Australia's biggest news publications, including a 10-year stint at the Tweed Daily News and the Surfers Paradise Mirror, the forerunner to the Gold Coast Bulletin, before establishing his own newspaper, what was to become the Gold Coast Sun newspapers.

In the late 1960s, Mr Ball left Australia to work as a photojournalist covering the Vietnam War, remaining in Asia to work on the South China Morning Post and the Hong Kong Standard for more than 20 years.

When he finally returned to Australia, he began to concentrate more on his creative work.

Influenced by great artists including Cezanne, Monet and Pissarro, he began experimenting with impressionism, trading the hard-edged realism of his early career for the softer, ethereal qualities of fine art photography.

"I came to regard the camera as a paintbrush, an artistic tool,” he said.

"I'd always used a camera as a means of recording the news, of taking someone's portrait, I'd done it for so long, I'd never thought of it as an artistic tool.”

Mr Ball has since published 11 books on impressionist and art photography and exhibited more than 40 times in galleries around the world. He shares his wealth of knowledge and creative skills, lecturing widely at universities in Australia and New Zealand.

His latest book, launched last month in Pottsville where he now lives with his wife Barbara, is entitled She: A visual celebration of women.

It is an hypnotic publication which ensnares the reader through a fascinating combination of photography and artwork, providing a ghostly glimpse into the mystique of femininity.

"This book is really important to me, it's a real milestone in my life,” Mr Ball said.

* The book is for sale at Pottsville newsagent, Poster Paradise in Murwillumbah and at www.kenball.com.au