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).
Fulham’s busy North End Road was made traffic-free for one day only as an initiative to show how a lack of traffic could create a “vibrant, attractive shopping area”. Not a Christmas Market in this very mixed borough though there were the smoky barbecues cooking what has evolved as the traditional finger food for a Christmas market. Nor any street decorations or lights, neither religious Christmas or winter festival. Simply an expanded market filling the space on the street usually occupied by motorists.
The best camera is the one you have in your hand. Quite so just now, finding myself unexpectedly in London’s West End and avoiding the rush hour crush entering Oxford Circus tube station, the obvious alternative is to walk down Carnaby Street to Piccadilly Circus.
What’s more, Carnaby Street lights are more interesting than the rather staid and comparatively dim Christmas lights strung between the big name shops in Regent Street and Oxford Street.
A “proper” camera with a tripod would have got a different result...
Sheffield Park is renowned for its autumn colours, not just the oaks and beeches but many acers and other exotic trees. Several giant sequoias and some interesting mushrooms. It's great to revisit time and time again though the traffic queues are an indication of its popularity, as well as the lack of alternative recreation in this increasingly crowded region
A short walk this afternoon from here in West Kensington (W14) to Kensington (W8) to visit Edwardes Square garden. There are blue plaques around the square registering famous residents: Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (no. 11), Ugo Foscolo (no. 19) and Frankie Howard (no. 27).
The garden is private to the residents of the square but was open to the public exceptionally under the National Gardens Access scheme.
The daffodils are past their best but many of the other colours are just starting.
