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).
Flying display at the Birds of Prey Centre at Muncaster Castle near Ravenglass in West Cumbria. These amazing birds fly with a precision and speed that is unimaginable from TV alone. Their flight is almost silent and of course deadly for their prey. Raptors are carnivorous: each display was rewarded with meat. It’s quite unnerving to be looked at directly by one of these birds of prey, ether through the viewfinder or by eye. And in this display the birds fly low, including over the heads of the audience, you feel the size and power of the predators with such a close encounter. The pair of Vultures were particularly impressive, working as a couple. And cute in thier own way; Note that Vultures are technically not birds of Prey as Vultures only eat meat that is already dead.
More photos: Birds of Prey flying at Muncaster Castle - Lake District National Park
Pausing on my hike to Place Fell to remember Mike Town (M.A.T.), my departed friend and neighbour in Keswick. Seeing again - but now on my own with my memories - the Patterdale pubs, the church and the George Starkey Hut, with its inspiring roster of famous climbers as past guests: Mike mentored at least one Everest summiteer.
Patterdale so enchanted Mike when he visited as a young child that he kept coming back here to hike the fells, study the weather and to make music. There’s a modest memorial plaque under the ancient Yew tree in the churchyard but Mike’s ultimate memorials are the ppe organs he rebuilt, played and passed on for the future.
More photos: Oh little town of Patterdale... Lake District National Park
My interpretation of the Via San Giovanni in historic Saluzzo in Piemonte. This angle of view does not exist so I have painted the elements in a montage of a number my photos (so not AI).
Photographs from a walk around Arles. My photographic reactions on this day to the many inspiring shapes, textures and views among these ancient streets of the Provence town which is well-known to photographers.
