Photography
My photography
I use photography to show something about where I’ve been or people whom I’ve met. As well as trying to see the beauty in a scene or situation, I’m also trying to convey ideas and feelings. My photography is about me and what I do, who I meet and where I go. All my photography tries to be contemporary and creative. I’m resistant to being fitted in to a taxonomy by categorisation such as “travel” or “conceptual” or “nature”. All image-making is political simply by the act of selection and hence exclusion but I am not campaigning for any particular point of view, except to try to see the positives and to live life to the full.
I use 645, 35mm and DX formats plus a handy little digital compact that shoots RAW files. I’ve experimented with non-lens photography - do ask!
I first worked in a monochrome/silver wet darkroom at age 7, helping my Father with scientific prints; I’ve used colour negative materials since age 21 and digital since 2005. I use Photoshop (Adobe) and Photopaint (Corel).
Ice and cold water, textures and colours not often seen in England. After nearly a week of hard frost, approaching -10°C overnight and hardly warmer in the daytimes, Keswick has been colder than Port Lockroy on the Antarctic Peninsular. The soft light, the colour of the ice and the sheen on the surface of the flowing but super-cooled water are all quite strange and took me back to a winters long ago when the water froze in the River Cam in Cambridge or the canals of the Amsterdam Ring.
South Downs ridge walk between Ditchling Beacon (248m.) and the Jack and Jill windmills at Clayton. The views are big and wide so I’ve printed to very low colour, nearly black and white, to show particularly the patterns which make this linear landscape special.
More photos: Walk to the windmills - South Downs National Park
Galleny Force - Stonethwaite Beck
Langstrath Beck
A study of the power and drama of the falls of the Langstrath Beck where it meets the Stonethwaite Beck, at the top end of Borrowdale.
More photos: Galleny Force - Langstrath Beck Falls - Lake District National Park
This photo produced an emotional response when I downloaded it from the camera. I think this is because seeing another plane below us from 38,000 feet is a reassurance in the deeply unnatural experience of flying in a passenger airplane. Most of us suppress our fear of flying but an image like this cuts through conscious logic. I happened to have my DSLR out during the flight so was able to snap the view out of the aircraft window
