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).
Dark because it’s been abandoned by ITV and The London Studios, the white facing of the London Weekend Television building on London’s South Bank reflects stray light from the displays on nearby buildings, the Oxo tower and the National Theatre. The big glass windows from the studios now super-black squares in the blank walls. Just security lights on the back yard and a few lights on what looks to be the seventh floor, home of the executives.
Sic transit gloria.
Yellow hi-viz jackets (gilets jaunes) displayed in protest on one of Marseille’s housing blocks, particularly visible as you arrive on the autoroute from Lyon. This particular gilets jaunes protest is about the poor housing standard of this block. Gilets jaunes are everywhere, most cars and almost all commercial vehicles are displaying theirs prominently.
Sandwell is anxious to throw off its Black Country image, the civic mission statement is Great People. Great Place. Great Prospects. The air pollution has gone leaving plenty of industrial architecture to admire. My reason for alighting at Sandwell & Dudley railway station was for a meeting of the RPS Landscape Group at The Old Schoolhouse, Oldbury, the home of Smethwick Photographic Society.
Fantasy situation for a football match; not my preferred sport but this looks idyllic, playing in autumn sunshine in the heart of the Lake District. I’m sure it’s not always so. Last year’s champions, Keswick FC, playing at home and staying top of Division One of the James Cropper Westmorland League. In the distance is Skiddaw (931 m.).
