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).
One lovely thing about the Lake District is that it has so many of the features of the big world outside Cumbria but on a scale that makes them accessible. The River Greta is powerful and causes damage for sure, but it’s a miniature compared to the Snake River (US) or the Kawarau (NZ). Nonetheless, the Greta has impressive rapids as it passes through its gorge upstream of Keswick. Waterfalls get the artists’ attention but it’s river rapids where you feel the power of moving water.
More photos: Rapids of the River Greta - Lake District National Park
This is London - towers of boxes. I surmise that this architecture nurtures thinking likewise, in boxes and towers.
View through the dirty window of a moving train approaching Battersea Park station, London.
I rather like the distortion due to the motion and softening due to the dirty window.
Could be Corsica... Dreaming of a southern coast... the Mediterranean, Corsica or Provence, maybe even the Indian Ocean. Always good to dream. More about the location after the pictures.
More photos: Could be Corsica... My Mediterranean photo fantasy
Lambley Viaduct, South Tynedale Railway
River South Tyne
Diverting off the direct route from Newcastle to Carlisle as the Tyneside rain and mist on gave way to glorious autumn sunshine up in the North Pennines. Also, the car hire company had supplied me a go-faster Corsa which I wanted to enjoy.
The River South Tyne rises in Cumbria even though it flows out to the North Sea. Its upper valley is now rural though dotted with industrial relics from the mining era including Lambley Viaduct of the South Tynedale Railway.
Great light for about half an hour but it didn’t last long, the show was over by the time I reached Hartside; Blencathra, Skiddaw and the Lakeland Fells were all hidden in low cloud.
Autumn just beginning around the Upper Pond in the Grade I listed garden of Sheffield Park, Sussex. You might notice a gap on the famous skyline on the right: the Sequoia was struck by lightning in a storm a year ago and much of the tree’s height was destroyed by fire. The tree is recovering but will never be as tall again in our lifetimes.
- Sheffield Park Sequoia - Sept 2012
- Nymans Woods
- Sheffield Park’s autumn displaySheffield Park geese
- Sheffield Park - October 2014
