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).
Earls Court exhibition centre is now gone, the concrete stadium which proudly hosted spectaculars ranging from The Royal Tournament and the London Boat Show to the original live shows of Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” and “The Wall”. Dust is to dust but as yet there is no monument. Meanwhile, the new blocks are beginning to tower over Brompton Cemetery, the exhibition centre’s peaceful neighbour.
Earls Court as it was...
Day trip to Penrith and Keswick, sunshine and heavy showers weather with the heavy showers merging towards the end of the day to give the “Cumbrian Monsoon” effect. Photographically, the light varies between moments of clear brilliant sunshine and almost monochrome, no colour in either the rain-drenched slate roofs or the rain-laden clouds.
My photo shows the often grim ruins of Penrith castle basking for just a moment in full colour.
This is autumn in the city: a Rowan tree laden with berries on the street on a bright autumn morning in Fulham, the strong Westerly breeze blowing away the clouds and heralding the return of the many planes tracking down over London to land at Heathrow airport. Apart from the view of the tree on the street outside the window, the architecture of those flats is definitely not inspirational but count on spending more than a quarter of a million pounds if you want to try to buy one. Note: Rowan berries are poisonous.
Two fisherman on the beach below Ovingdean Cliff in Sussex looking at Brighton's i360 “vertical pier” and the first of the new blocks at Brighton Marina.
Eight oarsmen rowing upstream at speed on the River Thames at Hammersmith Reach in West London, just down river from Hammersmith Bridge. Several rowers are wearing kit identified as Imperial College, London. The tide is still coming in but this is less than an hour before High Water. An eight at full speed is a wonderful sight, the oars pulling as one, the sleek boat flitting over the water, the swoosh sound of the oars slicing in to the water surmounted by the Cox calling the stroke.
